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THE LIBRARY 
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THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 
LOS ANGELES 


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THE CONSCRIPT 


A STORY OF THE FRENCH WAR OF 1813 





. Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2007 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/conscriptstoryfro0erckiala 





ORY 


WAR AND GL 


THEsSONSCRIPT 


A STORY OF THE FRENCH War OF I813 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCII OF 


ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


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& CO. 





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‘CopyriGHT, 1868, BY 








Copyricut, 1889 AND 1898, 


CHARLES SCRIB: 


SONS 


By CHARLES SCRIB 





Pe 
2238 


HO62ES5 
SEAL 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


War anp Giory, . é eee ° . Frontispiece 

FACING 

PAGE 
MonstEurR GoULDEN, . . - e ° : > > aman. * 
. Toe Dracoon FELL HEAVILY, . F: . ° . av 38 
‘Come, My Cuinpren; to Taste!” ‘ - z . 24 
‘*Wuo Gores THERE?” , Me * « + P mers) 


Tuey RELATED, wirH Masestic Arr, THEIR BATTLES, THEIR 
MaArcHES, AND THEIR DUELS, . ° ‘ . 4s 


** Loox YONDER,” . ° ° . . ° . - 86 
“CLOSE UP THE Ranks!” ° : ° : ° . 134 
EVERYTHING GAVE WAY BEFORE Him, . ° ° . 162 
We saw Him Sranpine on A TABLE, . . ° . 198 
In THE River THE DEAD WERE FLOATING BY IN Fizss, . 254 


% Hatt! Stop!” . * - - - E . 278 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


Insteap of following “ Madame Thérése” with 
stories celebrating the victories of Napoleon and 
thus appealing to their compatriots’ love of glory 
and military illusions, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian 
take up next the tragic and far more significant story 
of 1812-13. With “ The Conscript” begins their 
long, sustained, and eloquent sermon against war 
and war-wagers—the exordium, so to say, of their 
arraignment of Napoleon for wanton and insatiate 
love of conquest. “ The Conscript ” is certainly one 
of the most impressive statements of the darker side 
of the national pursuit of military glory that have 
ever been made. The first part of the book is taken 
up with a vivid and pathetic account of the passage 
of the grande armée through Alsace on its way to- 
Moscow and the Beresina, of the anxious waiting 
for news of the battles that succeeded, of the first 
suspicions of disaster and their overwhelming con- 
firmation, of the final rout and awful straggling re- 


treat and return of the great expedition, and its 
vii 


Vili INTRODUCTORY NOTE 


demoralized and harassed entry within the national 
frontiers once more. The second and major portion 
narrates the rude surprise of the continuation of 
warfare and the still more fatal campaign which 
opened so dubiously with Lutzen and Bautzen, and 
culminated so disastrously in Leipsic and the capitu- 
lation of Paris. . Poor Joseph Bertha, who tells the 
affecting and exciting story, is snatched away from 
his betrothed and his peaceful trade by the conscrip- 
tion, and his individual experiences in the campaign 
are as interesting, from the point of view of ro- 
mance, as their representative nature and his shrewd 
and simple reflections upon them are historically and 
philanthropically suggestive. Certainly, war, in the 
minutie of its reality, has never been more graph- 
ically painted than in “‘ The Conscript of 1813.” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I 


Tuose who have not seen the glory of the Em- 
peror Napoleon, during the years 1810, 1811, and 
1812, can never conceive what a pitch of power one 
man may reach. 

When he passed through Champagne, or Lor- 
raine, or Alsace, people gathering the harvest or 
the vintage would leave everything to run and see 
him; women, children, and old men would come 
a distance of eight or ten leagues to line his route, 
and cheer and cry, “ Vive ?Empereur! Vive ?Em- 
pereur!”’ One would think that he was a god, that 
mankind owed its life to him, and that, if he died, 
the world would crumble and be no more. A few 
old Republicans would shake their heads and mutter 
over their wine that the Emperor might yet fall, 
but they passed for fools. Such an event appeared 
contrary to nature, and no one even gave it a 


thought. 
I 


2 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I was in my apprenticeship since 1804, with an 
old watchmaker, Melchior Goulden, at Phalsbourg. 
As I seemed weak and was a little lame, my mother 
wished me to learn an easier trade than those of our 
village, for at Dagsberg there were only wood-cut- 
ters and charcoal-burners. Monsieur Goulden liked 
me very much. We lived on the first story of a 
large house opposite the “ Red Ox” inn, and near 
the French gate. 

That was the place to see princes, ambassadors, 
and generals come and go, some on horseback and 
some in carriages drawn by two or four horses; there 
they passed in embroidered uniforms, with waving 
plumes and decorations from every country under 
the sun. And in the highway what couriers, what 
baggage-wagons, what powder-trains, cannon, cais- 
sons, cavalry, and infantry did we see! Those were 

stirring times! 

In five or six years the innkeeper, George, had 
made a fortune. He had fields, orchards, houses, 
and money in abundance; for all these people, com- 
ing from Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Poland, 
or elsewhere, cared little for a few handfuls of gold 
scattered upon their road; they were all nobles, who 
took a pride in showing their prodigality. 

From morning until night, and even during the 
night, the “ Rex Ox” kept its tables in readiness. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 3 


Through the long windows on the first story nothing 
was to be seen but great white table-cloths, glitter- 
ing with silver and covered with game, fish, and 
other rare viands, around which the travellers sat 
side by side. In the yard behind, horses neighed, 
postilions shouted, maid-servants laughed, coaches 
rattled. Ah! the hotel of the “ Red Ox ” will never 
see such prosperous times again. 

Sometimes, too, people of the city stopped there, 
who in other times were known to gather sticks 
in the forest or to work on the highway. But now 
they were commandants, colonels, generals, and had 
won their grades by fighting in every land on earth. 

Old Melchior, with his black silk cap pulled over 
his ears, his weak eyelids, his nose pinched between 
great horn spectacles, and his lips tightly pressed 
together, could not sometimes avoid putting aside 
his magnifying-glass and punch upon the work- 
bench, and throwing a glance toward the inn, espe- 
cially when the cracking of the whips of the postil- 
ions, with their heavy boots, little jackets, and pe- 
rukes of twisted hemp, awoke the echoes of the ram- 
parts and announced a new arrival. Then he be- 
came all attention, and from time to time would 
exclaim: 

“Hold! It is the son of Jacob, the slater,” or of 
“the old scold, Mary Ann,” or of “the cooper, 


4 THE STORY. OF A CONSCRIPT 


Frantz Sépel! He has made his way in the world; 
there he is, colonel and baron of the empire into the 
bargain. Why don’t he stop at the house of his 
father, who lives yonder in the Rue des Capu- 
cins? ” 

But when he saw them shaking hands right and 
left in the street with those who recognized them, 
his tone changed; he wiped his eyes with his great 
spotted handkerchief, and murmured: 

“ How pleased poor old Annette will be! Good! 
good! Heis not proud; heisaman. God preserve 
him from cannon-balls! ” 

Others passed as if ashamed to recognize their 
birth-place; others went gayly to see their sisters 
or cousins, and everybody spoke of them. One 
would imagine that all Phalsbourg wore their crosses 
and their epaulettes; while the arrogant were de- 
spised even more than when they swept the roads. 

Nearly every month 7’e Deums were chanted, 
and the cannon at the arsenal fired their salutes 
of twenty-one rounds for some new victory, making 
one’s heart flutter. During the week following 
every family was uneasy; poor mothers especially 
waited for letters, and the first that came all the 
city knew of; “such an one had received a letter 
from Jacques or Claude,” and all ran to see if it 
spoke of their Joseph or their Jean-Baptiste. I do 





MONSIEUR GOULDEN. 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 5 


not speak of promotions or the official reports of 
deaths; as for the first, every one knew that the 
killed must be replaced; and as for the reports of 
deaths, parents awaited them weeping, for they did 
not come immediately; sometimes indeed they 
never came, and the poor father and mother hoped 
on, saying, “‘ Perhaps our boy is a prisoner. When 
they make peace he will return. How many have 
returned whom we thought dead!” _ 

But they never made peace. When one war was 
finished, another was begun. We always needed 
something, either from Russia or from Spain, or 
some other country. The Emperor was never sat- 
isfied. 

Often when regiments passed through the city, 
with their great coats pulled back, their knapsacks 
on their backs, their great gaiters reaching to the 
knee, and muskets carried at will; often when they 
passed covered with mud or white with dust, would 
Father Melchior, after gazing upon them, ask me 
dreamily: 

“Tow many, Joseph, think you we have seen 
pass since 1804?” 

“T cannot say, Monsieur Goulden,” I would re-. 
ply, “ at least four or five hundred thousand.” 

“Yes, at least! ” he’said, “and how many have 
returned? ” 


6 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Then I understood his meaning, and answered: 

“Perhaps they returned by Mayence or some 
other route. It cannot be possible otherwise! ” 

But he only shook his head, and said: 

“ Those whom you have not seen return are dead, 
as. hundreds and hundreds of thousands more will 
die, if the good God does not take pity upon us, 
for the Emperor loves only war. He has already 
spilt more blood to give his brothers crowns 
than our great Revolution cost to win the rights 
of man.” 

Then we set about our work again; but the 
reflections of Monsieur Goulden gave me some ter- 
rible subjects for thought. 

It was true that I was a little lame in the left 
leg; but how many others with defects of body had 
received their orders to march notwithstanding! 

These ideas kept running through my head, and 
when I thought long over them, I grew very melan- 
choly. They seemed terrible to me, not only be- 
cause I had no love for war, but because I was going 
to marry Catharine of Quatre-Vents. We had been 
in some sort reared together. Nowhere could be 
. found a girl so fresh and laughing. She was fair- 
haired, with beautiful blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and 
teeth as white as milk. She was approaching eigh- 
teen; I was nineteen, and Aunt Margrédel seemed 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 7 


pleased to see me coming early every Sunday morn- 
ing to breakfast and dine with them. 

Catharine and I often went into the orchard be- 
hind the house; there we bit' the same apples and 
the same pears; we were the happiest creatures in 
the world. It was I who took her to high mass and 
vespers; and on holidays she never left my side, and 
refused to dance with the other youths of the village. 
Everybody knew that we would some day be mar- 
ried; but, if I should be so unfortunate as to be 
drawn in the conscription, there was an end of mat- 
ters. I wished that I was a thousand times more 
lame; for at the time of which I speak they had 
first taken the unmarried men, then the married 
men who had no children, then those with one child; 
and I constantly asked myself, “‘ Are lame fellows 
of more consequence than fathers of families? Could 
they not put me in the cavalry?” The idea made 
me so unhappy that I already thought of fleeing. 

But in 1812, at the beginning of the Russian 
war, my fear increased. From February until the 
end of May, every day we saw pass regiments after 
regiments—dragoons, cuirassiers, carbineers, hus- 
sars, lancers of all colors, artillery, caissons, ambu- 
lances, wagons, provisions, rolling on forever, like 
a river which runs on and on, and of which one can 
never see the end. 


8 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


T still remember that this began with soldiers: 
driving large wagons drawn by oxen. These oxen 
were in the place of horses, and were to be used for 
food later on, when they should have used up their 
provisions. Everybody said, “ What a fine idea! 
When the soldiers can no longer feed the oxen, the 
oxen will feed the soldiers.” Unhappily those who 
said this did not know that the oxen could only make 
seven or eight leagues a day, and that for every 
eight days of marching, they must have at least 
one day’s rest; so that indeed, the poor animals’ 
hoofs were already dry and worn out, their lips 
drooping, their eyes standing out of their heads, and 
little but skin and bone left of them. For three 
weeks they kept passing in this way, all torn with 
thrusts of the bayonet. Meat became cheap, for 
they killed many of the oxen; but few wanted their 
flesh, the diseased meat being unhealthy. They 
never went more than twenty leagues beyond the 
Rhine. 

After that, we saw more lancers, sabres, and hel- 
mets file past. All flowed through the French gate, 
crossed the Place d’ Armes, and streamed out at the 
German gate. 

At last, on the 10th of May, in the year 1812, 
in the early morning, the guns of the arsenal an- 
nounced the coming of the master of all. I was 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 9 


yet sleeping when the first shot shook the little 
panes of my window till they rattled like a drum, 
and Monsieur Goulden, with a lighted candle, 
opened my door, saying, “ Get up, he is here! ” 

We opened the window. Through the night I 
saw a hundred dragoons, of whom many bore 
torches, enter at a gallop under the French gate; 
they shook the earth as they passed; their lights 
glanced along the house-fronts like dancing flames, 
and from every window we heard ceaseless shouts 
of “ Vive ?Empereur!” 

I was gazing at the carriage, when a horse 
crashed against the post to which the butcher Klein 
was accustomed to fasten his cattle. The dragoon 
fell heavily, his helmet rolled in the gutter, and 
immediately a head leaned out of the carriage to 
see what had happened—a large head, pale and fat, 
with a tuft of hair on the forehead: it was Na- 
poleon; he held his hand up as if about taking a 
pinch of snuff, and said a few words roughly. The 
officer galloping by the side of the coach bent down 
to reply; and his master took his snuff and turned 
the corner, while the shouts redoubled and the can- 
nons roared louder than ever. 

This was all that I saw. 

The Emperor did not stop at Phalsbourg, and, 
when he was on the road to Saverne, the guns fired 


Io THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


their last shot, and silence reigned once more. The 
guards at the French gate raised the drawbridge, 
and the old watchmaker said: 

“You have seen him?” 

““T have, Monsieur Goulden.” 

“Well,” he continued, “ that man holds all our 
lives in his hand; he need but breathe upon us and 
we are gone. Let us bless Heaven that he is not 
evil-minded; for if he were, the world would see 
again the horrors of the days of the barbarian kings 
and the Turks.” 

He seemed lost in thought, but in a moment he 
added: 

“You can go to bed again. The clock is striking 
three.” 

He returned to his room, and I to my bed. The 
deep silence without seemed strange after such a 
tumult, and until daybreak I never ceased dreaming 
of the Emperor. I dreamed, too, of the dragoon, 
and wanted to know if he were killed. The next 
day we learned that he was carried to the hospital 
and would recover. 

From that day until the month of September they 
often sang the 7'’e Deum, and fired twenty-one guns 
for new victories. It was nearly always in the morn- 
ing, and Monsieur Goulden cried: 

“Eh, Joseph! Another battle won! Fifty thou- 


ng") 
TA 
eg 


THE DRAGOON FELL HEAVILY. 








THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT II 


sand men lost! ‘T'wenty-five standards, a hundred 
guns won. All goes well, all goes well. It only 
remains now to order a new levy to replace the 
dead! ” 

He pushed open my door, and I saw him, bald, 
in his shirt-sleeves, with his neck bare, washing his 
face in the wash-bowl. 

“Do you think, Monsieur Goulden,” I asked, 
in great trouble, “that they will also take the 
lame?” 

“No, no,” he said kindly; ‘fear nothing, my 
child, you could not serve. We will fixthat. Only 
work well, and never mind the rest.” 

He saw my anxiety, and it pained him. I never 
met a better man. Then he dressed himself to go 
to wind up the city clocks—those of Monsieur the 
Commandant of the place, of Monsieur the Mayor, 
and other notable personages. I remained at home. 
Monsieur Goulden did not return until after the 
Te Deum. He took off his great brown coat, put 
his peruke back in its box, and again pulling his sdk 
cap over his ears, said: 

“The army is at Wilna or at Smolensk, as I 
learn from Monsieur the Commandant. God 
grant that we may succeed this time and make 
peace, and the sooner the better, for war is a terri. 
ble thing.” 


12 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I thought, too, that, if we had peace, so many 
men would not be needed, and that I could marry 
Catharine. Any one can imagine the wishes I 
formed for the Emperor’s glory. 


ii 


Tr was on the 15th of September, 1812, that the 
news came of the great victory of the Moskowa. 
Every one was full of joy, and all cried, “ Now we 
will have peace! now the war is ended! ” 

Some discontented folks might say that China 
yet remained to be conquered; such mar-joys are 
always to be found. 

A week after, we learned that our forces were > 
in Moscow, the largest and richest city in Rus- 
sia, and then everybody figured to himself the 
booty we would capture, and the reduction it would 
make in the taxes. But soon came the rumor that 
the Russians had set fire to their capital, and that 
it was necessary to retreat on Poland or to die of 
hunger. Nothing else was spoken of in the inns, 
the breweries, or the market; no one could meet 
his neighbor without saying, “ Well, well, things 
go badly; the retreat has commenced.” 

People grew pale, and hundreds of peasants 
waited morning and night at the post-office, but 
no letters came now. I passed and _ repassed 

13 


14 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


through the crowd without paying much attention 
to it, for I had seen so much of the same thing. 
And besides, I had a thought in my mind which 
gladdened my heart, and made everything seem 
rosy to me. 

You must know that for six months past I had 
wished to make Catharine a magnificent present for 
her birthday, which fell on the 18th of December. 
Among the watches which hung in Monsieur Goul- 
den’s window was one little one, of the prettiest 
kind, with a silver case full of little circles, which 
made it shine like a star. Around the face, under 
the glass, was a thread of copper, and on the face 
were painted two lovers, the youth evidently declar- 
ing his love, and giving to his sweetheart a large 
bouquet of roses, while she modestly lowered her 
eyes and held out her hand. 

The first time I saw the watch, I said to myself: 
“You will not let that escape; that watch is for 
Catharine, and, although you must work every day 
till midnight for it, she must have it.” Monsieur 
Goulden, after seven in the evening, allowed me 
work on my own account. He had old watches to 
clean and regulate; and as this work was often very 
troublesome, old Father Melchior paid me reason- 
ably for it. But the little watch was thirty-five 
francs, and one can imagine how many hours at 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 15 


night I would have to work for it. I am sure that 
if Monsieur Goulden knew that I wanted it he would 
have given it me for a present, but I would not have 
let him take a farthing less for it; I would have 
regarded doing so something shameful. I kept 
saying: “‘ You must earn it; no one else must have 
any claim upon it.” Only for fear somebody else 
might take a fancy to buy it, I put it aside in a box, 
telling Father Melchior that I knew a purchaser. 
Under these circumstances, every one can readily 
understand how it was that all these stories of war 
went in at one ear and out at the other with me. 
While I worked I imagined Catharine’s joy, and 
for five months that was all I had before my eyes. 
I thought how pleasedshe would look, and asked my- 
self, ‘“‘ What will she say?’ Sometimes I imagined 
she would ery out, “ Oh, Joseph! what are you 
thinking of? It is much too beautiful for me. No, 
no; I cannot take so fine a watch from you! ” Then 
I thought I would force it upon her; I would slip 
it into her apron-pocket, saying, “ Come, come, 
Catharine! Do you wish to give me pain?” I could 
see how she wanted it, and that she spoke so only 
to seem to refuse it. Then I imagined her blushing, 
with her hands raised, saying, “ Joseph, now I know 
indeed that you love me! ” And she would embrace 
me with tears in hereyes. I felt very happy. Aunt 


16 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Grédel approved of all. Ina word, a thousand such 
scenes passed through my mind, and when I retired 
at night I thought: “ There is no one as happy as 
you, Joseph. See what a present you can make 
Catharine by your toil; and she surely is preparing 
something for your birthday, for she thinks only 
of you; you are both very happy, and, when you 
are married, all will go well.” 

While I was thus working on, thinking only of 
happiness, the winter began, earlier than usual, 
toward the commencement of November. It did 
not begin with snow, but with dry, cold weather 
and heavy frosts. In a few days all the leaves had 
fallen and the earth was hard as ice and all covered 
with hoar-frost; tiles, pavement, and window-panes 
glittered with it. Fires had to be made that winter 
to keep the cold from coming in at the windows, 
and, when the doors were opened for a moment, the 
heat seemed to disappear at once. The wood erac- 
kled in the stoves and burnt away like straw in the 
fierce draught of the chimneys. 

Every morning I hastened to wash the panes of 
the shop-window with warm water, and I scarcely 
closed it when a frosty sheen covered it. Without, 
people ran puffing with their coat-collars over their 
ears and their hands in their pockets. No one stood 
still, and when doors opened, they soon closed. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 17 


I don’t know what became of the sparrows, 
whether they were dead or living, but not one twit- 
tered in the chimneys, and save the reveille and 
retreat sounded in the barracks, no noise broke the 
silence. 

Often when the fire crackled merrily, did Mon- 
sieur Goulden stop his work, and, gazing on the 
frost-covered panes, exclaim: 

“Our poor soldiers! our poor soldiers 

He said this so mournfully that I felt a choking 
in my throat as I replied: 

“ But, Monsieur Goulden, they ought now to be 
in Poland in good barracks; for to suppose that 
human beings could endure a cold like this—it is 


{22 


impossible.” 

“Such a cold as this,” he said; “ yes, here it is 
cold, very cold from the winds from the mountains; 
but what is this frost to that of the north, of Russia 
and of Poland? God grant that they started early 
enough. My God! my God! the leaders of men 
have a heavy weight to bear.” 

Then he would be silent, and for hours I would 
think of what he had said to me; I pictured to 
myself our soldiers on the march, running to keep 
themselves warm. But the thought of Catharine 
always came back to me, and I have often thought 


since that when one is happy, the misery of others 
2 


18 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


affects him but little, especially in youth, when the 
passions are strongest, and when we have had little 
knowledge of great griefs. 

After the frosts so much snow fell that the cou- 
riers were stopped on the road toward Quatre-V ents. 
I feared that I could not go to see Catharine on her 
féte-day; but two companies of infantry set out 
with pick-axes, and dug through the frozen snow 
a way for carriages, and that road remained open 
until the beginning of April, 1813. 

Nevertheless, Catharine’s birthday approached 
day by day, and my happiness increased in pro- 
portion. I had already the thirty-five francs, but 
I did not know how to tell Monsieur Goulden that 
I wished to buy the watch; I wanted to keep the 
whole matter secret; and I did not at all like to 
talk about it. 

At length, on the eve of the eventful day, be- 
tween six and seven in the evening, while we were 
working in silence, the lamp between us, suddenly 
I took my resolution, and said: 

“You know, Monsieur Goulden, that I spoke 
to you of a purchaser for the little silver watch.” 

“Yes, Joseph,” said he, without raising his head, 
“but he has not come yet.” 

“Tt is I who am the purchaser, Monsieur 


Goulden.” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 19 


Then he looked up in astonishment. I took out 
the thirty-five francs and laid them on the work- 
bench. He stared at me. 

“ But,” he said, “it is not such a watch as that 
~ you want, Joseph; you want one that will fill your 
pocket and mark the seconds. Those little watches 
are only for women.” 

I knew not what to say. 

Monsieur Goulden, after meditating a few mo- 
ments, began to smile. 

“ Ah!” he exclaimed; “ good! good! I under- 
stand now; to-morrow is Catharine’s birthday. Now 
I know why you worked day and night. Hold! 
take back this money; I do not want it.” 

I was all confusion. 

“Monsieur Goulden, I thank you,” I replied; 
“but this watch is for Catharine, and I wish to 
have earned it. You will pain me if you refuse 
the money; I would as lief not take the watch.” 

He said nothing more, but took the thirty-five 
francs; then he opened his drawer, and chose a 
pretty steel chain, with two little keys of silver- 
gilt, which he fastened to the watch. Then he 
put all together in a box with a rose-colored favor. 
He did all this slowly, as if affected; then he gave 
me the box. 

“It isa pretty present, Joseph,” said he. ‘ Cath- 


20 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


arine ought to think herself happy in having such 
a lover as you. She is a good girl. Now we can 
take our supper. Set the table.” 

The table was arranged, and then Monsieur 
Goulden took from a closet a bottle of his Metz 
wine, which he kept for great occasions, and we 
supped like old friends, rather than as master and 
apprentice; all the evening he never stopped speak- 
ing of the merry days of his youth; telling me how 
he once had a sweetheart, but that, in 1792, he 
left home in the levée en masse at the time of the 
Prussian invasion, and that on his return to Féné- 
trange, he found her married—a very natural thing, 
since he had never mustered courage enough to de- 
clare his love. However, this did not prevent his 
remaining faithful to the tender remembrance, and 
when he spoke of it he seemed sad indeed. I re- 
counted all this in imagination to Catharine, and 
it was not until the stroke of ten, at the passage of 
the rounds, which relieved the sentries on post every 
twenty minutes on account of the great cold, that 
we put two good logs on the fire, and at length went 
to bed. 


Tit 


Tue next day, the 18th of December, I arose 
about six in the morning. It was terribly cold; 
my little window was covered with a sheet of frost. 

I had taken care the night before to lay out on 
the back of a chair my sky-blue coat, my trousers, 
my goat-skin vest, and my fine black silk cravat. 
Everything was ready; my well-polished shoes lay 
at the foot of the bed; I had only to dress myself; 
but the cold I felt upon my face, the sight of those 
window-panes, and the deep silence without, made 
me shiver in anticipation. If it had not been Cath- 
arine’s birthday, I would have remained in bed until 
midday; but suddenly that recollection made me 
jump out of bed, and rush to the great delf stove, 
where some embers of the preceding night almost 
always remained among the cinders. I found two 
or three, and hastened to collect and put them under 
some split wood and two large logs, after which I 
ran back to my bed. 


Monsieur Goulden, under the huge curtains, with 
21 


22 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


the coverings pulled up to his nose and his cotton 
night-cap over his eyes, woke up, and cried out: | 

“Joseph, we have not had such cold for forty 
years. I never felt it so. What a winter we shall 
have! ” 

I did not answer, but looked out to see if the 
fire was lighting; the embers burnt well; I heard 
the chimney draw, and at once all blazed up. The 
sound of the flames was merry enough, but it re- 
quired a good half-hour to feel the air any warmer. 

At last I arose and dressed myself. Monsieur 
Goulden kept on chatting, but I thought only of 
Catharine, and when at length, toward eight o’clock, 
I started out, he exclaimed: 

“Joseph, what are you thinking of? Are you 
going to Quatre-Vents in that little coat? You 
would be dead before you had got half way. Go 
into my closet, and take my great cloak, and the 
mittens, and the double-soled shoes lined with flan- 
nel.” 

I was so smart in my fine clothes that I reflected 
whether it would be better to follow his advice, and 
he, seeing my hesitation, said: 

“Listen! a man was found frozen yesterday on 
the way to Wecham. Doctor Steinbrenner said 
that he sounded like a piece of dry wood when they 
tapped upon him. He was a soldier, and had left 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 23 


the village between six and seven o’clock, and at 
eight they found him; so that the frost did not 
take long to do its work. If you want your nose 
and ears frozen, you have only to go out as you are.” 

I knew then, that he was right; so I put on the 

thick shoes, and passed the cord of the mittens over 

my shoulders, and put the cloak over all. Thus ac- 
coutred, I sallied forth, after thanking Monsieur 
Goulden, who warned me not to stay too late, for 
the cold increased toward night, and great numbers 
of wolves were crossing the Rhine on the ice. 

I had not gone as far as the church when I turned 
up the fox-skin collar of the cloak to shield my ears. 
The cold was so keen that it seemed as though the air 
were filled with needles, and one’s body shrank in- 
voluntarily from head to foot. 

Under the German gate, I saw the soldier on 
guard, in his great gray mantle, standing back in 
his box like a saint in his niche; he had his sleeve 

wrapped about his musket where he held it, to keep 
his fingers from the iron, and two long icicles hung 
from his mustaches. No one was on the bridge, 
not even the toll-gatherer, but a little farther on, 
I saw three carts in the middle of the road with 
their canvas-tops all covered and glistening with 
frost; they were unharnessed and abandoned. Eyv- 
erything in the distance seemed dead; all living 


24 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


things had hidden themselves from the cold; and 
I could hear nothing but the snow crunching under 
my feet. Running along the cemetery, where the 
crosses and gravestones glistened in the snow, I said 
to myself: “Those who sleep there are no longer 
cold!” I drew my cloak over my breast, and hid 
my nose in the fur collar, thanking Monsieur Goul- 
den for his lucky thought. I also thrust my hands 
into the muffler to the elbows, and ran along in the 
deep trench, extending farther than the eye could 
reach, that the soldiers had made from the town as 
far as Quatre-Vents. On each side were walls of ice: 
In some places swept by the wind, I could see the oak 
forest and the bluish mountain, both seeming much 
nearer than they were, on account of the clearness 
of the air. Not a dog barked in a farm-yard; it 
was too cold even for that. 

But in spite of all this the thought of Catharine 
warmed my heart, and soon I descried the first 
houses of Quatre-Vents. The chimneys and the 
thatched roofs, to the right and left of the road, 
were scarcely higher than the mountains of snow, 
and the villagers had dug trenches along the walls, 
so that they could pass to each other’s houses. But 
that day every family kept around its hearth, and 
the little round window-panes seemed painted red, 
from the great fires burning within. Before each 





‘COME, MY CHILDREN; TO TABLE!” 


” 2 


i ee 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 25 


door was a truss of straw to keep the cold from en- 
tering beneath it. 

At the fifth door to the right I stopped to take 
off my mittens; then I opened and closed it very 
quickly. I was at the house of Grédel Bauer, the 
widow of Matthias Bauer, and Catharine’s mother. 

As I entered, and while Aunt Grédel, seated by 
the hearth, astonished at my fox-skin collar, was 
yet turning her gray head, Catharine, in her Sun- 
day dress—a pretty striped petticoat, a kerchief with 
long fringe folded across her bosom, a red apron 
fastened around her slender waist, a pretty cap of 
blue silk with black velvet bands setting off her 
rosy and white face, soft eyes, and rather short nose 
—Catharine, I say, exclaimed: 

“Tt is Joseph! ” 

And without waiting to look twice, she ran to 
greet me, saying: 

“T knew the cold would not keep you from 
coming.” 

I was so happy that I could not speak. I took 
off my cloak, which I hung upon a nail on the wall, 
with my mittens; I took off Monsieur Goulden’s 
great shoes, and turned pale with joy. 

I would have said something agreeable, but could 
not; suddenly I exclaimed: 

“ See here, Catharine; here is something for your 


26 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


birthday, but you must give me a kiss before open- 
ing the box.” 

She put up her pretty red cheek to me, and then 
ran to the table. Aunt Grédel also came to see the 
present. Catharine untied the cord and opened the 
box. I was behind them; my heart jumped, 
jumped,—I feared that the watch was not pretty 
enough. But in an instant, Catharine, clasping her 
hands, said in a low voice: 

“ How beautiful! Itis a watch! ” 

“Yes,” said Aunt Grédel; “it is beautiful! I 
never saw so fine a one. One would think it was 
silver.” 

“ But it is silver,” returned Catharine, turning 
toward me inquiringly. 

Then I said: 

“Do you think, Aunt Grédel, that I would be 
capable of giving a gilt watch to one whom I love 
better than my own life? IfI could do such a thing, 
I would despise myself more than the dirt of my 
shoes.” 

Catharine, hearing this, threw her arms around 
my neck; and as we stood thus, I thought: “ this is 
the happiest day of my life.” I could not let her go. 

Aunt Grédel asked: 

“‘ But what is this painted upon the face?” 

I could not speak to answer her; and only at 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 27 


last, when we were seated beside each other, I took 
the watch and said: 

“That painting, Aunt Grédel, represents two 
lovers who love each other more than they can tell: 
Joseph Bertha and Catharine Bauer; Joseph is 
offering a bouquet of roses to his sweetheart, who 
is stretching out her hand to take them.” 

When Aunt Grédel had sufficiently admired the 
watch, she said: 
~ “Come until I kiss you, Joseph. I see very well 
that you must have economized closely, and worked 
hard for this watch, and I think it is very pretty, 
and that you are a good workman, and will do us 
no discredit.” 

I kissed Aunt Grédel’s cheek, and from then until 
midday, I did not let go Catharine’s hand. We 
were as happy as could be looking at each other. 
Aunt Grédel bustled about to prepare a large pan- 
cake with dried prunes, and wine, and cinnamon, 
and other good things in it; but we paid no attention 
to her, and it was only when she put on her red 
jacket and black sabots, and called, “‘ Come, my 
children; to table!” that we saw the fine table- 
cloth, the great porringer, the pitcher of wine, and 
the large round, golden pancake on a plate in the 
middle. The sight rejoiced us not a little, and Cath- 
arine said: 


28 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“Sit there, Joseph, opposite the window, that I 
may look at you. But you must fix my watch, for 
I do not know where to put it.” 

I passed the chain around her neck, and then, seat- 
ing ourselves, we ate gayly. Without, not a sound 
was heard; within, the fire crackled merrily upon 
the hearth. It was very pleasant in the large kitch- 
en, and the gray cat, a little wild, gazed at us 
through the balusters of the stairs without daring to 
come down. 

Catharine, after dinner, sang Der liebe Gott. 
She had a sweet, clear voice, and it seemed to float 
to heaven. I sang low, merely to sustain her. Aunt 
Grédel, who could never rest doing nothing, began 
spinning; the hum of her wheel filled up the si- 
lences, and we all felt happy. When one song was 
ended, we began another. At three o’clock, Aunt 
Grédel served up the pancake, and as we ate it, 
laughing, like the happiest of beings, she would ex- 
claim: 

“ Come, come; now, you are children in reality.” 

She pretended to be angry, but we could see in 
her eyes that she was happy from the bottom of her 
heart. This lasted until four o’clock, when night 
began to come on apace; the darkness seemed to 
enter by the little windows, and, knowing that we 
must soon part, we sat sadly around the hearth on 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 29 


which the red flames were dancing. Catharine 
pressed my hand. I would almost have given my 
life to remain longer. Another half-hour passed, 
when Aunt Grédel cried: 

“Listen, Joseph! It is time for you to go; the 
moon does not rise till after midnight, and it will 
soon be dark as a kiln outside, and an accident hap- 
pens so easily in these great frosts.” 

These words seemed to fall like a bolt of ice, and 
I felt Catharine’s clasp tighten on my hand. But 
Aunt Grédel was right. 

“Come,” said she, rising and taking down the 
cloak from the wall; “‘ you will come again Sun- 
day.” 

I had to put on the heavy shoes, the mittens, and 
the cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and would have 
wished that I were a hundred years doing so, but, 
unfortunately, Aunt Grédel assisted me. When 
I had the great collar drawn up to my ears, she said: 

“ Now, kiss us good-by, Joseph.” 

I kissed her first, then Catharine, who did not 
say a word. After that I opened the door and the 
terrible cold, entering, admonished me not to wait. 

“ Hasten, Joseph,” said my aunt. 

“ Good-night, Joseph, good-night! ” cried Cath- 
arine, “ and do not forget to come Sunday.” 

T turned round to wave my hand; and then I ran 


30 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


on without raising my head, for the cold was so in- 
tense that it brought tears to my eyes even behind 
the great collar. 

I ran on thus some twenty minutes, scarcely 
daring to breathe, when a drunken voice called 
out: 

“Who goes there? ” 

I looked through the dim night, and saw, fifty 
paces before me, Pinacle, the pedler, with his huge 
basket, his otter-skin cap, woollen gloves, and iron- 
pointed staff. The lantern hanging from the strap 
of his basket lit up his debauched face, his chin 
bristling with yellow beard, and his great nose 
shaped like an extinguisher. He glared with his 
little eyes like a wolf, and repeated, “‘ Who goes 
there?” 

This Pinacle was the greatest rogue in the coun- 
try. He had the year before a difficulty with Mon- 
~ sieur Goulden, who demanded of him the price of 
a watch which he undertook to deliver to Monsieur 
Anstett, the curate of Homert, and the money for 
which he put into his pocket, saying he’ paid it to 
me. But although the villain made oath before the 
justice of the peace, Monsieur Goulden knew the 
contrary, for on the day in question neither he nor 
I had left the house. Besides, Pinacle wanted to 
dance with Catharine at a festival at Quatre-Vents, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 31 


‘and she refused because she knew the story of the 
watch, and was, besides, unwilling to leave me. 

The sight, then, of this rogue with his iron-shod 
stick in the middle of the road did not tend to re- 
joice my heart. Happily a little path which wound 
around the cemetery was at my left, and, without 
replying, I dashed through it although the snow 
reached my waist. 

Then he, guessing who I was, cried furiously: 

“ Aha! it is the little lame fellow! Halt! halt! 
I want to bid you good-evening. You came from 
Catharine’s, you watch-stealer.” 

But I sprang like a hare through the heaps of 
snow; he at first tried to follow me, but his pack 
hindered him, and, when I gained the ground again, 
he put his hands around his mouth, and shrieked: 

“ Never mind, cripple, never mind! Your reck- 
oning is coming all the same; the conscription is 
coming—the grand conscription of the one-eyed, 
the lame, and the hunch-backed. You will have to 
go, and you will find a place under ground like the 
others.” 

He continued his way, laughing like the sot he 
was, and I, scarcely able to breathe, kept on, thank- 
ing Heaven that the little alley was so near; for 
Pinacle, who was known always to draw his knife 
in afight, might have done me an ill turn. 


32 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


In spite of my exertion, my feet, even in the 
thick shoes, were intensely cold, and I again began 
running. 

That night the water froze in the cisterns of 
Phalsbourg and the wines in the cellars—things 
that had not happened before for sixty years. 

On the bridge and under the German gate the 
_ silence seemed yet deeper than in the morning, and 
the night made it seem terrible. A few stars shone 
between the masses of white cloud that hung over 
the city. All along the street I met not a soul, and 
when I reached home, after shutting the door of 
our lower passage, it seemed warm to me, although 
the little stream that ran from the yard along the 
wall was frozen. I stopped a moment to take breath; 
- then I ascended in the dark, my hand on the bal- 
uster. 

When I opened the door of my room, the cheer- 
ful warmth of the stove was grateful indeed. Mon- 
sieur Goulden was seated in his arm-chair before 
the fire, his cap of black silk pulled over his ears, 
and his hands resting upon his knees. 

“Ts that you, Joseph?” he asked without turn- 
ing round. 

“Tt is,” I answered. ‘‘ How pleasant it is here, 


and how cold out of doors! We never had such a 
winter.” 





‘*WHO GOES THERE?” 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 33 


“No,” he said gravely. “ It is a winter that will 
long be remembered.” 

I went into the closet and hung the cloak and 
mittens in their places, and was about relating my 
adventure with Pinacle, when he resumed: 

“ You had a pleasant day of it, Joseph.” 

“T have had, indeed. Aunt Grédel and Catha- 
rine wished me to make you their compliments.” 

“Very good, very good,” said he; “the young 
are right to amuse themselves, for when they grow 
old, and suffer, and see so much of injustice, selfish- 
ness, and misfortune, everything is spoiled in ad- 
vance.” 

He spoke as if talking to himself, gazing at the 
fire. I had never seen him so sad, and I asked: 

“ Are you not well, Monsieur Goulden?” 

But he, without replying, murmured: 

“Yes, yes; this is to be a great military nation; 
this is glory! ” 

He shook his head and bent over gloomily, his 
heavy gray brows contracted in a frown. 

I knew not what to think of all this, when raising 
his head again, he said : 

“ At this moment, Joseph, there are four hundred 
thousand families weeping in France ; the grand 
army has perished in the snows of Russia ; all those 
stout young men whom for two months we saw pass- 

3 


34 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


ing our gates are buried beneath them. The news 
came this afternoon. Oh! it is horrible! hor- 
rible !” 

I was silent. Now I saw clearly that we must 
have another conscription, as after all campaigns, 
and this time the lame would most probably be 
called. I grew pale, and Pinacle’s prophecy made 
my hair stand on end. 

“ Go to bed, Joseph ; rest easy,” said Monsieur 
Goulden. “Iam not sleepy ; I will stay here ; all 
this upsets me. Did you remark anything in the 
city?” . 

“ No, Monsieur Goulden.” 

I went to my room and to bed. For a long time 
T could not close my eyes, thinking of the conscrip- 
tion, of Catharine, and of so many thousands of 
men buried in the snow, and then I plotted flight to 
Switzerland. 

About three o’clock Monsieur Goulden retired, 
and a few minutes after, through God’s grace, I fell 
asleep. 


IV 


Wuen [ arose in the morning, about seven, I went 
_ to Monsieur Goulden’s room to begin work, but he 
was still in bed, looking weary and sick. 

“ Joseph,” said he, “Iam not well. This hor- 
rible news has made me ill, and I have not slept at 
all.” 

* Shall I not make you some tea?” I asked. 

* No, my child, that is not worth while. I will 
get up by and by. But this is the day to regulate 
the city clocks ; I cannot go; for to see so many 
good people—people I have known for thirty years 
—in misery, would kill me. Listen, Joseph : take 
those keys hanging behind the door and go. I will 
try to sleep a little. If I could sleep an hour or two, 
it would do me good.” 

“ Very well, Monsieur Goulden,” I replied ; “I 
will go at once.” 

After putting more wood in the stove, I took the 
cloak and mittens, drew Monsieur Goulden’s bed- 
curtains, and went out, the bunch of keys in my 
pocket. The illness of Father Melchior grieved me 

35 


36 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


very much for a while, but a thought came to con- 
sole me, and I said to myself : ‘“‘ You can climb up 
the city clock-tower, and see the house of Catharine 
and Aunt Grédel.” Thinking thus, I arrived at 
the house of Brainstein, the bell-ringer, who lived at 
the corner of the little place, in an old, tumble- 
down barrack. His two sons were weavers, and in 
their old home the noise of the loom and the whistle 
of the shuttle was heard from morning till night. 
The grandmother, old and blind, slept in an arm- 
chair, on the back of which perched a magpie. 
Father Brainstein, when he did not have to ring the 
bells for a christening, a funeral, or a marriage, kept 
reading his almanac behind the small round panes 
of his window. ° 

Beside their hut was a little box under the roof 
of the old hall, where the cobbler Koniam worked, 
and farther on were the butchers’ and fruiterers’ 
shops. 

I came then to Brainstein’s, and the old man, 
when he saw me, rose up, saying : 

“ Tt is you, Monsieur Joseph.” 

“Yes, Father Brainstein ; I came in place of 
Monsieur Goulden, who is not well.” 

“ Very good ; it is all the same.” 

He took up his staff and put on his woollen cap, 
driving away the cat that was sleeping upon it; then 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 37 


he took the great key of the steeple from a drawer, 
and we went out together, I glad to find myself 
again in the open air, despite the cold ; for their 
miserable room was gray with vapor, and as hard to 
breathe in as a kettle ; I could never understand 
how people could live in such a way. 

At last we gained the street, and Father Brain- 
stein said : 

“ You have heard of the great Russian disaster, 
Monsieur Joseph?” 

“Yes, Father Brainstein ; it is fearful ! ” 

“ Ah!” said he, “ there will be many a Mass 
said in the churches ; every one will weep and pray 
for their children, the more that they are dead in a 
heathen land.” 

“ Certainly, certainly,” I replied. 

We crossed the court, and in front of the tower- 
hall, opposite the guard-house, many peasants and 
city people were already standing, reading a pla- 
card. We went up the steps and entered the church, 
where more than twenty women, young and old, 
were kneeling on the pavement, in spite of the ter- 
rible cold. 

“Ts it not as I said?” said Brainstein. “ They 
are coming already to pray, and half of them have 
been here since five o’clock.” 


He opened the little door of the steeple leading 


38 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


to the organ, and we began climbing up in the dark. 
Once in the organ-loft, we turned to the left of the 
bellows, and went up to the bells. 

I was glad to see the blue sky and breathe the free 
air again, for the bad odor of the bats which in- 
habited the tower almost suffocated me. But how 
terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every 
wind, and how dazzlingly the snow shone over 
twenty leagues of country! All the little city of 
Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, three demilunes, 
two advanced works, its barracks, magazines, 
bridges, glacis, ramparts ; its great parade-ground, 
and little, well-aligned houses, were beneath me, as 
if drawn on white paper. I was not yet accustomed 
to the height, and I held fast on the middle of the 
platform for fear I might jump off, for I had read of 
people having their heads turned by great heights. 
I did not dare go to the clock, and, if Brainstein had 
not set me the example, I would have remained 
there, pressed against the beam from which the bells 
hung ; but he said : 

“Come, Monsieur Joseph, and see if it is 
right.” 

Then I took out Monsieur Goulden’s large watch 
which marked seconds, and I saw that the clock was 
considerably slow. Brainstein helped me to wind 
it up, and we regulated it. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 39 


“The clock is always slow in winter,” said he, 
“ because of the iron working.” 

After becoming somewhat accustomed to the ele- 
vation, I began to look around. There were the 
Oakwood barracks, the upper barracks, Bigelberg, 
and lastly, opposite me, Quatre-V ents, and the house 
of Aunt Grédel, from the chimney of which a thread 
of blue smoke rose toward the sky. And I saw the 
kitchen, and imagined Catharine, in sabots, and 
woollen skirt, spinning at the corner of the hearth 
and thinking of me. I no longer felt the cold ; I 
could not take my eyes from their cottage. 

Father Brainstein, who did not know what I was 
looking at, said : 

“Yes, yes, Monsieur Joseph : now all the roads 
are covered with people in spite of the snow. The 
~ news has already spread, and every one wants to 
know the extent of his loss.” 

He was right ; every road and path was covered 
with people coming to the city ; and looking in the 
court, I saw the crowd increasing every moment be- 
fore the guard-house, the town-house, and the post- 
office. A deep murmur arose from the mass. | 

At length, after a last, long look at Catharine’s 
house, I had to descend, and we went down the dark, 
winding stairs, as if descending into a well. Once 
in the organ-loft, we saw that the crowd had greatly 


40 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


increased in the church ; all the mothers, the sis- 
ters, the old grandmothers, the rich, and the poor, 
were kneeling on the benches in the midst of the 
deepest silence ; they prayed for the absent, offer- 
ing all only to see them once again. 

At first I did not realize all this ; but suddenly 
the thought that, if I had gone the year before, 
Catharine would be there, praying and asking me of 
God, fell like a bolt on my heart, and I felt all my 
body tremble. 

“Let us go! let us go!” I exclaimed, “ this is 
terrible.” 

“What is?” he asked. 

if 4 War.”’ 

We descended the stairs under the great gate, and 
I went across the court to the house of Monsieur the 
Commandant Meunier, while Brainstein took the © 
way to his house. 

At the corner of the Hotel de Ville, I saw a sight 
’ which I shall remember all my life. There, around 
a placard, were more than five hundred people, men 
and women crowded against each other, all pale, and 
with necks outstretched, gazing at it as at some hor- 
rible apparition. They could not read it, and from 
time to time one would say in German or French : 

“ But they are not all dead ! Some will return.” 

Others cried out : 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 41 


“Let us see it ! let us get near it.” 

A poor old woman in the rear lifted up her hands, 
and cried : 

“Christopher ! my poor Christopher ! ” 

Others, angry at her clamor, called out : 

“ Keep that old woman quiet.” 

Each one thought only of himself. 

Behind, the crowd continued to pour through the 
German gate. 

At length, Harmantier, the sergent-de-ville, came 
out of the guard-house, and stood at the top of the 
steps, with another placard like the first ; a few sol- 
diers followed him. ‘Then a rush was made toward 
him, but the soldiers kept off the crowd, and old 
Harmantier began to read the placard, which he 
called the twenty-ninth bulletin, and in which the 
Emperor informed them that during the retreat the 
horses perished every night by thousands. He said 
nothing of the men ! 

The sergent-de-ville read slowly ; not a breath 
was heard in the crowd ; even the old woman, who 
did not understand French, listened like the others. 
The buzz of a fly could have been heard. But when 
he came to this passage, “Our cavalry was dis- 
mounted to such an extent that we were forced to 
bring together the officers who yet owned horses to 
form four companies of one hundred and fifty men 


42 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


each. Generals rated as captains, and colonels as 
under-officers ”—when he read this passage, which 
told more of the misery of the grand army than all 


the rest, cries and groans arose on all sides ; two or 


three women fell and were carried away. 

It is true that the bulletin added, “ The health of 
his majesty was never better,” and that was a great 
consolation. Unfortunately it could not restore life 
to three hundred thousand men buried in the snow ; 
and so the people went away very sad. Others 
came by dozens who had not heard the news read, 
and from time to time Harmantier came out to read 
the bulletin. 

This lasted until night ; still the same scene over 
and over again. 

T ran from the place ; I wanted to know nothing 
about it. 

T went to Monsieur the Commandant’s. Enter- 
ing a parlor, I saw him at breakfast. He was an old 
man, but hale, with a red face and good appetite. 

“ Ah! itis you!” said he, “ Monsieur Goulden 
is not coming, then?” 

“‘ No, Monsieur the Commandant, the bad news 
has made him ill.” 

“ Ah! I understand,” he said, emptying his 
glass ; “ yes, it is unfortunate.” 

And while I was regulating the clock, he added ; 


¥ 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 43 


“ Well! tell Monsieur Goulden that we will have 
our revenge. We cannot always have the upper 
hand. For fifteen years we have kept the drums 
beating over them, and it is only right to let them 
have this little morsel of consolation. And then 
our honor is safe ; we were not beaten fighting ; 
without the cold and the snow, those poor Cossacks 
would have had a hard time of it. But patience ; 
the skeletons of our regiments will soon be filled, 
and then let them beware.” 

I wound up the clock ; he rose and came to look 
at it, for he was a great amateur in clock-making. 
He pinched my ear in a merry mood ; and then, as 
I was going away, he cried as he buttoned up his 
overcoat, which he had opened before beginning 
breakfast : 

“Tell Father Goulden to rest easy ; the dance 
will begin again in the spring ; the Kalmucks will 
not always have winter fighting for them. Tell 
him that.” 

“* Yes, Monsieur the Commandant,” I answered, 
shutting the door. 

His burly figure and air of good humor comforted 
me a little ; but in all the other houses I went to, at 
the Horwiches, the Frantz-Tonis, the Durlaches, 
everywhere I heard only lamentations. The women 
especially were in misery ; the men said nothing, 


44 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


but walked about with heads hanging down, and 
without even looking to see what I was doing. 

Toward ten o’clock there only remained two per- 
sons for me to see : Monsieur de la Vablerie-Cham- 
berlan, one of the ancient nobility, who lived at the 
end of the main street, with Madame Chamberlan- 
d’Ecof and Mademoiselle Jeanne, their daughter. 
They were émigrés, and had returned about three or 
four years before. They saw no one in the city, 
and only three or four old priests in the environs. 
Monsieur de la Vablerie-Chamberlan loved only the 
chase. He had six dogs at the end of the yard, and 
a two-horse carriage ; Father Robert, of the Rue 
des Capucins, served them as coachman, groom, 
footman, and huntsman. Monsieur de la Vablerie- 
Chamberlan always wore a hunting vest, a leathern 
cap, and boots and spurs. All the town called him 
the hunter, but they said nothing of Madame nor of 
Mademoiselle de Chamberlan. 

I was very sad when I pushed open the heavy 
door, which closed with a pulley whose creaking 
echoed through the vestibule. What was then my 
surprise to hear, in the midst of general mourning, 
the tones of a song and harpsichord! Monsieur de 
la Vablerie was singing, and Mademoiselle Jeanne 
accompanying him. I knew not, in those days, that 
the misfortune of one was often the joy of others, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 45 


and I said to myself with my hand on the latch : 
“ They have not heard the news from Russia.” 

But while I stood thus, the door of the kitchen 
opened, and Mademoiselle Louise, their servant, 
putting out her head, asked : 

“ Who is there? ” 

“Tt is I, Mademoiselle Louise.” 

“Ah! it is you, Monsieur Joseph. Come this 
way.” 

They had their clock in a large parlor which they 
rarely entered ; the high windows, with blinds, re- 
mained closed ; but there was light enough for 
what I had to do. I passed then through the 
kitchen and regulated the antique clock, which was 
a magnificent piece of work of white marble. Ma- 
demoiselle Louise looked on. 

“You have company, Mademoiselle Louise? ” 
said I. 
“< No, but monsieur ordered me to let no one in.” 

“You are very cheerful here.” 

“ Ah! yes,” she said; “and it is for the first 
time in years ; I don’t know what is the matter.” 

My work done, I left the house, meditating on 
these occurrences, which seemed to me strange. The 
idea never entered my mind that they were rejoicing 
at our defeat. 

Then I turned the corner of the street to go to 


46 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Father Féral’s, who was called the ‘“ Standard- 
bearer,” because, at the age of forty-five, he, a 
blacksmith, and for many years the father of a fam- 
ily, had carried the colors of the volunteers of Phals- 
bourg in ’92, and only returned after the Zurich 
campaign. He had his three sons in the army of 
Russia, Jean, Louis, and George Féral. George 
was commandant of dragoons; the two others, 
officers of infantry. 

I imagined the grief of Father Féral while I was 
going, but it was nothing to what I saw when I en- 
tered hisroom. The poor old man, blind and bald, 
was sitting in an arm-chair behind the stove, his 
head bowed upon his breast, and his sightless eyes 
open, and staring as if he saw his three sons stretched 
at his feet. He did not speak, but great drops of 
sweat rolled down his forehead on his long, thin 
cheeks, while his face was pale as that of a corpse. 
Four or five of his old comrades of the times of the 
Republic—Father Desmarets, Father Nivoi, old 
Paradis, and tall old Froissard—had come to console 
him. They sat around him in silence, smoking 
- their pipes, and looking as if they themselves needed * 
comfort. 

From time to time one or the other would say : 

“Come, come, Féral! are we no longer veterans 
of the army of the Sambre-and-Meuse? ” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 47 


Or, : 

“ Courage, Standard-bearer : courage! Did we 
not carry the battery at Fleurus? ” Seis 

Or some other similar remark. 

But he did not reply ; every minute he sighed, 
his aged, hollow cheeks swelled ; then he leaned 
over, and the old friends made signs to each other, 
shaking their heads, as if to say : 

“ This looks bad.” 

I hastened to regulate the clock and depart, for to 
see the poor old man in such a plight made my heart 
bleed. 

When I arrived at home, I found Monsieur 
Goulden at his work-bench. ; 

“ You are returned, Joseph,” saidhe. ‘ Well?’ 

“Well, Monsieur Goulden, you had reason to 
stay away ; it is terrible.” 

And I told him all in detail. 

“Yes ; I knew it all,” said he, sadly, “ but our 
misfortunes are only beginning ; these Prussians 
and Austrians and Russians and Spaniards—all the 
nations we have been beating since eighteen hun- 
dred and four, are now taking advantage of our ill 
luck to fall upon us. We gave them kings and 
queens they did not know from Adam nor Eve, and 
whom they did not want, it seems, and now they are 
going to bring back the old ones with all their trains 


48 | THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


of nobles, and after pouring out our blood for the 
Emperor’s brothers, we are about losing all we 
gained by the Revolution. Instead of being first 
among the first we will be last among the last. 
While you were away I was thinking of all this ; it 
is unavoidable—We relied upon soldiers alone, and 
now that we have no more, we are nothing.” 

He arose. I set the table, and, whilst we were 
dining in silence, the bells of the steeples began to 
ring. 

“Some one is dead in the city,” said Monsieur 
Goulden. 

“Indeed? I did not hear of it.” 

Ten minutes after, the Rabbi Rose came in to 
have a glass put in his watch. 

“ Who is dead?” asked Monsieur Goulden. 

* Poor old Standard-bearer.” 

“What ! Father Féral?” 

“Yes, near an hour ago. Father Desmarets and 
several others tried to comfort him ; at last he asked 
them to read to him the last letter of his son George, 
the commandant of dragoons, in which he says that 
next spring he hoped to embrace his father with a 
colonel’s epaulettes. As the old man heard this, he 
tried to rise, but fell back with his head upon his 
knees. That letter had broken his heart.” 

Monsieur Goulden made no remark on the news. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 49 


“Here is your watch, Monsieur Rose,” said he, 
handing it back to the rabbi ; “ it is twelve sous.” 

Monsieur Rose departed, and we finished our din- 
ner in silence. 


V 


A Frew days after, the gazette announced that the 
Emperor was in Paris, and that the King of Rome 
and the Empress Marie-Louise were about to be 
crowned. Monsieur the Mayor, his coadjutor and 
the municipal councillors now spoke only of the 
rights of the throne, and Professor Burguet, the 
elder, wrote a speech on the subject which Baron 
Parmentier read. But all this produced but little 
effect on the people, because every one was afraid of 
being carried off by the conscription, and knew that 
many more soldiers were needed; all were in 
trouble, and I grew thinner day by day. In vain 
would Monsieur Goulden say: “ Fear nothing, 
Joseph ; you cannot march. Consider, my child, 
that any one as lame as you would give out at the 
end of the first mile.” 

But all this did not lessen my uneasiness. 

Monsieur Goulden, often, too, when we were 
alone at work, would say to me : 

‘“‘ Tf those who are now masters, and who tell us 
that God placed them here on earth to make us 

50 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 51 


happy, would foresee at the beginning of a campaign 
the poor old men, the hapless mothers, whose very 
hearts they have torn away to satisfy their pride— 
if they could see the tears and hear the groans of 
these poor people when they are coldly told ‘ Your 
son is dead ; you will see him no more ; he per- 
ished, crushed by horses’ hoofs, or torn to pieces by 
a cannon-ball, or died mayhap afar off in a hospital, 
after having his arm or leg cut off,—burning with 
fever, without one kind word to console him, but 
calling for his parents as when he was an infant,’— 
if, I say, these haughty ones of earth could thus see 
the tears of those mothers, I do not believe that one 
among them would be barbarous enough to continue 
the war. But they think nothing of this; they 
think other folks do not love their children as they 
love theirs ; they think people are no more than 
beasts. They are wrong ; all their great genius, 
their lofty notions of glory, are as nothing, for there 
is only one thing for which a people should fly to 
arms—men, women, children—old and young. It 
is when their liberty is assailed as ours was in 792— 
then all should die or conquer together ; he who re- 
mains behind is a coward, who would have others 
fight for him ;—the victory then is not for a few, 
but for all ;—then sons and fathers are defending 
their families ; if they are killed, it is a misfortune, 


52 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


to be sure, but they die for their rights. Such a 
man, Joseph, is the only just one, the one of which 
no one can complain ; all others are shameful, and 
the glory they bring is not glory fit for a man, but 
only for a wild beast.” 

On the eighth of January, a huge placard was 
posted on the town-hall, stating that the Emperor 
would levy, after a senatus-consultus, as they said 
ia those days, in the first place, one hundred and 
fifty thousand conscripts of 1813 ; then one hun- 
dred cohortes of the first call of 1812 who thought 
they had already escaped ; then one hundred thou- 
sand conscripts of from 1809 to 1812, and so on to 
the end ; so that every loop-hole was closed, and we 
would have a larger army than before the Russian 
expedition. 

When Father Fouze, the glazier, came to us with 
this news, one morning, I almost’fell, through faint- 
ness, for I thought : 

“ Now they will take all, even fathers of families. 
I am lost !” 

Monsieur Goulden poured some water on my 
neck ; my arms hung useless by my side; I was 
pale as a corpse. 

But I was not the only one upon whom the pla- 
card had such an effect : that year many young men 
refused to go ; some broke their teeth off, so as not 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 53 


to be able to tear the cartridge ; others blew off 
their thumbs with pistols, so as not to be able to 
hold a musket ; others, again, fled to the woods ; 
they proclaimed them “ refractories,” but they had 
not gendarmes enough to capture them. 

The mothers of families took courage to revolt 
after a manner, and to encourage their sons not to 
obey the gendarmes. They aided them in every 
way ; they cried out against the Emperor, and the 
clergy of all denominations sustained them in so do- 
ing. The cup was at last full ! 

The very day of the proclamation I went to 
Quatre-Vents ; but it was not now in the joy of my 
heart ; it was as the most miserable of unhappy 
wretches, about fo be bereft of love and life. I 
could scarcely walk, and when I reached there I did 
not know how to announce the evil tidings ; but I 
saw at a glance that they knew all, for Catharine 
was weeping bitterly, and Aunt Grédel was pale 
with indignation. 

We embraced in silence, and the first words Aunt 
Grédel said to me, as in her anger she pushed her 
gray hair behind her ears, were : 

You shall not go! What have we to do with 
wars? The priest himself told us it was at last too 
much, and that we ought to have peace! You 
shall not go! Do not ery, Catharine ; I say he 
shall not go!” 


54 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


She was fairly green with anger, and rattled her 
kettles noisily together, saying : 

“ This carnage has lasted long enough. Our two 
poor cousins, Kasper and Yokel, are already going 
to lose their lives in Spain for this Emperor, and 
now he comes to ask us for the younger ones. He 
is not satisfied to have slain three hundred thousand 
in Russia. Instead of thinking of peace, like a man 
of sense, he thinks only of massacring the few who 
remain. Wewillsee! We will see!” 

“In the name of Heaven! Aunt Grédel, be 
quiet ; speak lower,” said I, looking at the win- 
dow. “If they hear you, we are lost.” 

“T speak for them to hear me,” she replied. 
“Your Napoleon does not frighten me. He com- 
menced by closing our mouths, so that he might do 
as he pleased ; but the end approaches. Four 
young women are losing their husbands in our vil- 
lage alone, and ten poor young men are forced to 
abandon everything, despite father, mother, re- 
ligion, justice, God! Is not this horrible? ” 

T tried to answer, but she kept on : 

“Hold, Joseph,” said she; “be silent; your 
Emperor has no heart—he will end miserably yet. 
God showed his finger this winter ; He saw that we 
feared a man more than we feared Him; that 
mothers—like those whose babes Herod slew— 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 55 


dared no longer cling to their own flesh when that 
man demanded them for massacre ; and so the cold 
came and our army perished ; and now those who 
are leaving us are the same as already dead. God 
is weary of allthis! Youshall not go!” cried she 
obstinately ; “ I shall not let you go ; you shall fly 
to the woods with Jean Kraft, Louis Béme, and all 
our bravest fellows ; you shall go to the mountains 
—to Switzerland, and Catharine and I will go with 
you and remain until this destruction of men is 
ended.” 

Then Aunt Grédel became silent. Instead of 
giving us an ordinary dinner, she gave us a better 
one than on Catharine’s birthday, and said, with the 
air of one who has taken a resolution : 

“ Kat, my children, and fear not ; there will soon 
be a change ! ” 

I returned about four in the evening to Phals- 
bourg, somewhat calmer than when I set out. But 
as I went up the Rue de la Munitionnaire, I heard 
at the corner of the college the drum of the sergent- 
de-ville, Harmantier, and I saw a throng gathered 
around him. Iran to hear what was going on, and 
I arrived just as he began reading a proclamation. 

Harmantier read that, by the senatus-consultus 
of the 3d, the drawing for the conscription would 
take place on the 15th. 


56 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


It was already the 8th, and only seven days re- 
mained. This upset me completely. 

The crowd dispersed in the deepest silence. I 
went home sad enough, and said to Monsieur 
Goulden : 

“The drawing takes place next Thursday.” 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “ they are losing no time, 
things are pressing.” 

It is easy to imagine my grief that day and the 
days following. I could scarcely stand; I con- 
stantly saw myself on the point of leaving home. I 
saw myself flying to the woods, the gendarmes at 
my heels, crying, “Halt! halt!” Then I 
thought of the misery of Catharine, of Aunt Grédel, 
of Monsieur Goulden. Then I imagined myself 
marching in the ranks with a number of other 
wretches, to whom they were crying out, “‘ Forward! 
charge bayonets! ” while whole files were being 
swept away. I heard bullets whistle and shells 
shriek ; in a word, I was in a pitiable state. 

“Be calm, Joseph,” said Monsieur Goulden ; 
“ do not torment yourself thus. I think that of all 
who may be drawn there are probably not ten who 
can give as good reasons as you for staying at home. 
The surgeon must be blind to receive you. Be- 
sides, I will see Monsieur the Commandant. Calm 
yourself.” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 57 


But these kind words could not reassure me. 

Thus I passed an entire week almost in a trance, 
and when the day of the drawing arrived, Thursday 
morning, I was so pale, so sick-looking that the 
parents of conscripts envied, so to speak, my appear- 
ance for their sons. “ That fellow,” they said, 
“has a chance ; he would drop the first mile. Some 
people are born under a lucky star !” 


VI 


Tue town-house of Phalsbourg, that Thursday 
morning, January 15, 1813, during the drawing 
of the conscription, was a sight to be seen. To-day 
it is bad enough to be drawn, to be forced to leave 
parents, friends, home, one’s cattle and one’s fields, 
to go and learn—God knows where—“ One! two! 
one! two! halt! eyes left! eyes right! front! 
carry arms! ” etc., etc. Yes, this is all bad enough, 
but there is a chance of returning. One can say, 
with something like confidence: “In seven years 
I shall see my old nest again, and my parents, and 
perhaps my sweetheart. I shall have seen the 
world, and will perhaps have some title to be ap- 
pointed forester or gendarme.” This is a comfort 
for reasonable people. But then, if you had the ill- 
luck to lose in the lottery, there was an end of you; 
often not one in a hundred returned. The idea 
that you were only going for a time never entered 
your head. 

The enrolled of Harberg, of Garbourg, and of 


Quatre-Vents were to draw first; then those of the 
NY 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 59 


city, and lastly those of Wéchem and Mittel- 
bronn. 

I was up early in the morning, and with my 
elbows on the work-bench I watched the people 
pass by; young men in blouses, poor old men in 
cotton caps and short vests; old women in jackets 
and woollen skirts, bent almost double, with a staff 
or umbrella under their arms. They arrived by 
families. Monsieur the Sub-Prefect of Sarrebourg, — 
with his silver collai, and his secretary, had 
stopped the day before at the “ Red Ox,” and they 
were also looking out of the window. Toward 
eight o’clock, Monsieur Goulden began work, after 
breakfasting. I ate nothing, but stared and stared 
until Monsieur the Mayor Parmentier and his co- 
adjutor, came for Monsieur the Sub-Prefect. 

The drawing began at nine, and soon we heard 
the clarionet of Pfifer-Karl and the violin of big 
Andrés resounding through the streets. They 
were playing the “ March of the Swedes,” an air 
to which thousands of poor wretches had left old 
Alsace for ever. The conscripts danced, linked 
arms, shouted until their voices seemed to pierce 
the clouds, stamped on the ground, waved their 
hats, trying to seem joyful while death was at their 
hearts. Well, it was the fashion; and big Andrés, 
withered, stiff, and yellow as boxwood, and his 


60 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


short chubby comrade, with cheeks extended to 
their utmost tension, seemed like people who would 
lead you to the church-yard all the while chatting 
indifferently. 

That music, those cries, sent a shudder through 
my heart. 

I had just put on my swallow-tailed coat and 
my beaver hat, to go out, when Aunt Grédel and 
Catharine entered, saying: 

“ Good-morning, Monsieur Goulden. We have 
come for the conscription.” 

Then I saw how Catharine had been crying. 
Her eyes were red, and she threw her arms around 
my neck, while her mother turned to me. 

Monsieur Goulden said: 

“Tt will soon be the turn of the young men of 
the town.” 

“ Yes, Monsieur Goulden,” answered Catharine 
in a choking voice; “ they have finished Harberg.” 

“Then it is time for you to go, Joseph,” said 
he; “but do not grieve; do not be frightened. 
These drawings, you know, are only a matter of 
form. For a long while past none can escape; for 
if they escape one drawing, they are caught a year 
or two after. All the numbers are bad. When 
the council of exemption meets, we will see what 
is best to be done. To-day it is merely a sort of 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 61 


satisfaction they give the people to draw in the 
lottery; but every one loses.” 

“ No matter,” said Aunt Grédel; “ 5 oseph will 
Win. ”? 

“Yes, yes,” replied Monsieur Goulden, smiling, 
“he cannot fail.” 

Then I sallied forth with Catharine and Aunt 
Grédel, and we went to the town square, where 
the crowd was. In all the shops, dozens of con- 
scripts, purchasing ribbons, thronged around the 
counters, weeping and singing as. if possessed. 
Others in the inns embraced, sobbing; but still 
they sang. Two or three musicians of the neigh- 
borhood—the Gipsy Walteufel, Rosselkasten, and 
George Adam—had arrived, and their pieces thun- 
dered in terrible and heart-rending strains. 

Catharine squeezed my arm. Aunt Grédel fol- 
lowed. 

Opposite the guard-house I saw the pedler Pin- 
acle afar off, his pack opened on a little table, and 
beside it a long pole decked with ribbons which he 
was selling to the conscripts. 

T hastened to pass by him, when he cried: 

“Ha! Cripple! Halt! Come here; I have a 
ribbon for you; you must have a magnificent one 
—one to draw a prize by.” 

He waved a long black ribbon above his head, 


62 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


and I grew pale despite myself. But as we as- 
cended the steps of the town-house, a conscript 
was just descending; it was Klipfel, the smith of 
the French gate; he had drawn number eight, and 
shouted: 

“The black for me, Pinacle! Bring it here, 
whatever may happen.” 

His face was gloomy, but he laughed. His little 
brother Jean was crying behind him, and said: 

“No, no, Jacob! not the black! ” 

But Pinacle fastened the ribbon to the smith’s 
hat, while the latter said: 

“ That is what we want now. We are all dead, 
and should wear our own mourning.” 

And he cried savagely: 

“ Vive VEmpereur!” 

I was better satisfied to see the black ribbon on 
his hat than on mine, and I slipped quickly through 
the crowd to avoid Pinacle. 

We had great difficulty in getting into the town- 
house and in climbing the old oak stairs, where 
people were going up and down in swarms. In 
the great hall above, the gendarme Kelz walked 
about maintaining order as well as he could, and 
in the council-chamber at the side, where there 
was a painting of Justice with her eyes blind- 
folded, we heard them calling off the numbers. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 63 


From time to time a conscript came out with 
flushed face, fastening his number to his cap and 
passing with bowed head through the crowd, like 
a furious bull who cannot see clearly and who 
would seem to wish to break his horns against the 
walls. Others, on the contrary, passed as pale as 
death. The windows of the town-house were open, 
and without we heard six or seven pieces playing 
together. It was horrible. 

I pressed Catharine’s hand, and we passed slowly 
through the crowd to the hall where Monsieur the 
Sub-Prefect, the Mayors, and the Secretaries were 
seated on their tribune, calling the numbers aloud, 
as if pronouncing sentence of death in a court of 
justice, for all these numbers were really sentences 
of death. 

We waited a long while. 

It seemed as if there was no longer a drop of 
blood in my veins, when at last my name was called. 

I stepped up, seeing and hearing nothing; I put 
my hand in the box and drew a number. 

Monsieur the Sub-Prefect cried out: 

“ Number seventeen.” 

Then I left without speaking, Catharine and 
her mother behind me. We went out imto the 
square, and, the air reviving me, I remembered 
that I had drawn number seventeen. 


64 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Aunt Grédel seemed confounded. 

“And I put something into your pocket, too,” 
said she; “ but that rascal of a Pinacle gave you 
ill-luck.” 

At the same time she drew from my coat-pocket 
the end of acord. Great drops of sweat rolled down 
my forehead; Catharine was white as marble, and 
so we went back to Monsieur Goulden’s. 

“What number did you draw, Joseph?” he 
asked, as soon as he saw us. 

“ Seventeen,” replied Aunt Grédel, sitting down 
with her hands upon her knees. 

Monsieur Goulden seemed troubled for a mo- 
ment, but he said instantly: 

“One is as good as another. All will go; the 
skeletons must be filled. But it don’t matter for 
Joseph. I will go and see Monsieur the Mayor and 
Monsieur the Commandant. It will be telling no 
lie to say that Joseph is lame; all the town knows 
that; but among so many they may overlook him. 
That is why I go, so rest easy; do not be anxious.” 

These. words of good Monsieur Goulden reas- 
sured Aunt Grédel and Catharine, who returned 
to Quatre-Vents full of hope; but they did not 
affect me, for from that moment I had not a mo- 
ment of rest day or night. 

The Emperor had a good custom: he did not 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 65 


allow the conscripts to languish at home. Soon as 
the drawing was complete, the council of revision 
met, and a few days after came the orders of march. 
He did not do like those tooth-pullers who first 
show you their pincers and hooks and gaze for an 
hour into your mouth, so that you feel half dead 
before they make up their minds to begin work: 
he proceeded without loss of time. 

A week after the drawing, the council of revi- 
sion sat at the town-hall, with all the mayors and a 
few notables of the country to give advice in case 
of need. 

The day before Monsieur Goulden had put on 
his brown great-coat and his best wig to go to wind 
up Monsieur the Mayor’s clock and that of the 
Commandant. He returnet: laughing and said: 

“ All goes well, Joseph. Monsieur the Mayor 
and Monsieur the Commandant know that you are 
lame; that is easy enough to be seen. They re- 
plied at once, Eh, Monsieur Goulden, the young 
man is lame; why speak of him? Do not be un- 
easy; we do not want the infirm; we want sol: 
diers.” 

These words poured balm on my wounds, and 
that night I slept like one of the blessed. But the 
next day fear again assailed me; I remembered 
suddenly how many men full of defects had gone 

- 


66 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


all the same, and how many others invented de- 
fects to deceive the council; for instance, swallow- 
ing injurious substances to make them pale; tying 
up their legs to give themselves swollen veins; or 
playing deaf, blind, or foolish. Thinking over all 
these things, I trembled at not being lame enough, 
and determined that I would appear sufficiently 
forlorn. I had heard that vinegar would make one 
sick, and without telling Monsieur Goulden, in my 
fear I swallowed all the vinegar in. his bottle. Then 
I dressed myself, thinking that I looked like a dead 
man, for the vinegar was very strong; but when 
I entered Monsieur Goulden’s room, he cried out: 

“ Joseph, what is the matter with you? You 
are as red as a cock’s comb.” 

And, looking at myself in the mirror, I saw that 
my face was red to my ears, and to the tip of my 
nose. I was frightened, but instead of growing pale 
T became redder yet, and I cried out in my distress: 

“ Now I am lost indeed! TI will seem like a man 
without a single defect, and full of health. The 
vinegar is rushing to my head.” 

“ What vinegar?” asked Monsieur Goulden. 

“That in your bottle. I drank it to make my- 
self pale, as they say Mademoiselle Sclapp, the or- 
ganist does. O heavens! what a fool I was.” 

“ That does not prevent your being lame,” said 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 67 


Monsieur Goulden; “ but you tried to deceive the 
council, which was dishonest. But it is half-past 
nine, and Werner is come to tell me you must be 
there at ten o’clock. So, hurry.” 

I had to go in that state; the heat of the vinegar 
seemed bursting from my cheeks, and when I met 
Catharine and her mother, who were waiting for 
me at the town-house, they scarcely knew me. 

“ How happy and satisfied you look! ” said Aunt 
Grédel. 

I would have fainted on hearing this if the 
vinegar had not sustained me in spite of myself. 
I went upstairs in terrible agony, without being 
able to move my tongue to reply, so great was the 
horror I felt at my folly. 

Upstairs, more than twenty-five conscripts who 
pretended to be infirm, had been examined and re- 
ceived, while twenty-five others, on a bench along 
the wall, sat with drooping heads awaiting their 
turn. 

The old gendarme, Kelz, with his huge cocked 
hat, was walking about, and as soon as he saw me, 
exclaimed: 

“ At last! At last! Here is one, at all events, 
who will not be sorry to go; the love of glory is 
shining in his eyes. Very good, Joseph; I predict 
that at the end of the campaign you will be cor- 
poral.” 





68 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“ But I am lame,” I cried, angrily. 

“ Lame! ” repeated Kelz, winking and smiling, 
“Jame! No matter. With such health as yours 
you can always hold your own.” 

He had scarcely ceased speaking when the door 
of the hall of the Council of Revision opened, and 
the other gendarme, Werner, putting out his head, 
called me by name, “ Joseph Bertha.” 

I entered, limping as much as I could, and Wer- 
ner shut the door. The mayors of the canton were 
seated in a semicircle, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect 
and the Mayor of Phalsbourg in the middle, in arm- 
chairs, and the Secretary Freylig at his table. A 
Harberg conscript was dressing himself, the gen- 
darme Descarmes helping him put on his suspend- 
ers. This conscript, with a mass of brown hair fall- 
ing over his eyes, his neck bare, and his mouth open 
as he caught his breath, seemed like a man going 
to be hanged. Two surgeons—the Surgeon-in- 
Chief of the Hospital, with another in uniform— 
were conversing in the middle of the hall. They 
turned to me saying, “ Undress yourself.” 

I did so, even to my shirt. The others looked on. 

Monsieur the Sub-Prefect observed: 

“ There is a young man full of health.” 

These words angered me, but I nevertheless re- 
plied respectfully: 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 69 


“T am lame, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect.” 

The surgeon examined me, and the one from 
the hospital, to whom Monsieur the Commandant 
had doubtless spoken of me, said: 

“ The left leg is a little short.” 

* Bah! ” said the other; “ it is sound.” 

Then placing his hand upon my chest he said, 
“The conformation is good. Cough.” 

I coughed as feebly as I could; but he found me 
all right, and said again: 

“ Look at his color. How good his blood must 
be! ” 

Then I, seeing that they would pass me if I re- 
mained silent, replied: 

“ T have been drinking vinegar.” 

“ Ah!” said he; “ that proves you have a good 
stomach; you like vinegar.” 

“But Iam lame!” I cried in my distress. 

“ Bah! don’t grieve at that,’ he answered; 
“ your leg is sound. I'll answer for it.” 

* But that,” said Monsieur the Mayor, “ does 
not prevent his being lame from birth; all Phals- 
bourg knows that.” 

“The leg is too short,” said the surgeon from 
the hospital; “it is doubtless a case for exemp- 
tion.” 
“Yes,” said the Mayor; “I am sure that this 


70 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


young man could not endure a long march; he 
would drop on the road the second mile.” 

The first surgeon said nothing more. 

I thought myself saved, when Monsieur the Sub- 
Prefect asked: 

“You are really Joseph Bertha?” 

“Yes, Monsieur the Sub-Prefect,” I answered. 

“ Well, gentlemen,” said he, taking a letter out 
of his portfolio, “ listen.” 

He began to read the letter, which stated that, 
six months before, I had bet that I could go to 
Laverne and back quicker than Pinacle; that we 
had run the race, and I had won. 

It was unhappily too true. The villain Pinacle 
had always taunted me with being a cripple, and 
in my anger I laid the wager. Every one knew 
of it. I could not deny it. 

While I stood utterly confounded, the. first 
surgeon said: 

“That settles the ouestion. Dress yourself.” 
And turning to the secretary, he cried, “ Good 
for service.” 

T took up my coat in despair. 

Werner called another. I no longer saw any- 
thing. Some one helped me to get my arms in 
my coat-sleeves. Then I found myself upon the 
stairs, and while Catharine asked me what had 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 71 


passed, I sobbed aloud and would have fallen from 
top to bottom if Aunt Grédel had not supported 
me. 

We went out by the rear-way and crossed the 
little court. I wept like a child, and Catharine 
did too. Out in the hall, in the shadow, we stopped 
to embrace each other. 

Aunt Grédel cried out: 

“Oh the robbers! They are taking the lame 
and the sick. It is all the same to them; next they 
will take us.” 

A crowd began collecting, and Sépel the butcher, 
who was cutting meat in the stall, said: 

“ Mother Grédel, in the name of Heaven keep 
quiet. They will put you in prison.” 

“Well, let them put me there! ” she cried, “ let 
them murder me. I say that men are fools to 
allow such outrages! ” 

But the sergent-de-ville was coming up, and we 
went on together weeping. We turned the cor- 
ner of Café Hemmerle, and went into our own 
house. People looked at us from the windows and 
said, “ There is another one who is going.” 

Monsieur Goulden knowing that Aunt Grédel 
and Catharine would come to dine with us the day 
of the revision, had had a stuffed goose and two 
bottles of good Alsace wine sent from the “ Golden 





72 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Sheep.” He was sure that I would be exempted 
at once. What was his surprise, then, to see us 
enter together in such distress. 

“ What is the matter?” said he, raising his silk 
cap over his bald forehead, and staring at us with 
eyes wide open. 

I had not strength enough to answer. I threw 
myself into the arm-chair and burst into tears. 
Catharine sat down beside me, and our sobs re- 
doubled. 

Aunt Grédel said: 

“The robbers have taken him.” 

It is not possible! ” exclaimed Monsieur Goul- 
den, letting fall his arms by his side. 

“Tt shows their villainy,” replied my aunt, and’ 
growing more and more excited, she cried, “ Will 
a revolution never come again? Shall those 
wretches always be our masters?” 

‘Calm yourself, Mother Grédel,” said Monsieur 
Goulden. “In the name of Heaven don’t cry so 
loud. Joseph, tell me how it happened. They are 
surely mistaken; it cannot be otherwise. Did 
Monsieur the Mayor and the hospital surgeon say 
nothing? ” 

I told the history of the letter between my sobs, 
and Aunt Grédel, who until then knew nothing of 
it, again shrieked with her hands clinched. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 73 


“O the scoundrel! God grant that he may cross 
my threshold again. I will cleave his head with 
my hatchet.” 

Monsieur Goulden was astounded. 

“ And you did not say that it was false. Then 
the story was true?” 

And as I bowed my head without replying he 
clasped his hands, saying: 

“O youth! youth! it thinks of nothing. What 
folly! what folly! ” 

He walked around the room; then sat down to 
wipe his spectacles, and Aunt Grédel exclaimed: 

“ Yes, but they shall not have him yet! Their 
wickedness shall yet go for nothing. This very 
evening Joseph shall be in the mountains on the 
way to Switzerland.” 

Monsieur Goulden hearing this, looked grave; 
he bent his brows, and replied in a few moments: 

“Tt is a misfortune, a great misfortune, for 
Joseph is really lame. They will yet find it out, 
for he cannot march two days without falling be- 
hind and becoming sick. But you are wrong, 
Mother Grédel, to speak as you do and give him 
bad advice.” 

“Bad advice! ” she cried. “Then you are for 
having people massacred too! ” 

“No,” he answered; “I do not love wars, es- 


74 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


pecially where a hundred thousand men lose their 
lives for the glory of one. But wars of that kind 
are ended. It is not now for glory and to win new 
kingdoms that soldiers are levied, but to defend our 
country, which had been put in danger by tyranny 
and ambition. We would gladly have peace now. 
Unhappily, the Russians are advancing; the Prus- 
sians are joining them: and our friends, the Aus- 
trians, only await a good opportunity to fall-upon 
our rear. If we do not go to meet them, they will 
come to our homes; for we are about to have Eu- 
rope on our hands as we had in 793. It is now a 
different matter from our wars in Spain, in Russia, 
and in Germany; and I, old as I am, Mother 
Grédel, if the danger continues to increase and the 
veterans of the republic are needed, I would be 
ashamed to go and make clocks in Switzerland while 
others were pouring out their blood to defend my 
country. Besides, remember this well, that desert- 
ers are despised everywhere; after having com- 
mitted such an act, they have no kindred or home 
anywhere. They have neither father, mother, 
church nor country. They are incapable of ful- 
filling the first duty of man—to love and sustain 
their country, even though she be in the wrong.” 

He said no more at the moment, but sat gravely 
down. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 75 


“ Let us eat,” he exclaimed, after some minutes 
of silence. “ It is striking twelve o’clock. Mother 
Grédel and Catharine, seat yourselves there.” 

They sat down, and we began dinner. I thought 
of the words of Monsieur Goulden, which seemed 
right tome. Aunt Grédel compressed her lips, and 
from time to time gazed at me as if to read my 
thoughts. At length she said: 

“I despise a country where they take fathers of 
families after carrying off the sons. If I were in 
Joseph’s place, I would fly at once.” 

“ Listen, Aunt Grédel,” I replied; “ you know 
that I love nothing so much as peace and quiet, but 
I would not, nevertheless, run away like a coward 
to another country. But, notwithstanding, I will 
do as Catharine says; if she wishes me to go to 
Switzerland, I will go.” 

Then Catharine, lowering her head to hide her 
tears, said in a low voice: 

“TI would not have them call you a deserter.” 

“Well, then, I will do like the others,” I cried; 
“and as those of Phalsbourg and Dagsberg are 
going to the wars, I will go.” 

Monsieur Goulden made no remark. 

“Every one is free to do as he pleases,” said he, 
after a while; “ but I am glad that Joseph thinks 
as [ do.” 


76 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Then there was silence, and toward two o’clock 
Aunt Grédel arose and took her basket. She 
seemed utterly cast down, and said: 7 

“ Joseph, you will not listen to me, but no mat- 
ter. With God’s grace, all will yet be well. You 
will return if He wills it, and Catharine will wait 
for you.” 

Catharine wept again, and I more than she; so 
that Monsieur Goulden himself could not help 
shedding tears. 

At length Catharine and her mother descended 
the stairs, and Aunt Grédel called out from the bot- 
tom: 

“Try to come and see us once or twice again, 
Joseph.” 

“Yes, yes,” I answered, shutting the door. 

I could no longer stand. Never had I been so 
miserable, and even now, when I think of it, my 


heart chills, 


Vil 


From that day I could think of nothing but my 
misfortune. I tried to work, but my thoughts were 
far away, and Monsieur Goulden said : 

“ Joseph, stop working. Make the most of the 
little time you can remain among us; go to see 
Catharine and Mother Grédel. I still think they 
will exempt you, but who can tell? They need men 
so much that it may be a long time coming.” 

I went every morning then to Quatre-Vents, and 
passed my days With Catharine. We were very sor- 
rowful, but very glad to see each other. We loved 
one another even more than before, if that were pos- 
sible. Catharine sometimes tried to sing as in the 
good old times ; but suddenly she would burst into 
tears. Then we wept together, and Aunt Grédel 
would rail at the wars which brought misery to 
every one. She said that the Council of Revision 
deserved to be hung ; that they were all robbers, 
banded together to poison our lives. It solaced us a 
little to hear her talk thus, and we thought she was 
right. 

77 


78 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I returned to the city about eight or nine o’clock 
in the evening, when they closed the gates, and as I 
passed, I saw the small inns full of conscripts and old 
returned soldiers drinking together. The con- 
scripts always paid ; the others, with dirty police 
caps cocked over their ears, red noses, and horse-hair. 
stocks in place of shirt-collars, twisted their mus- 
taches and related with majestic air their battles 
their marches, and their duels. One can imagine 
nothing viler than those holes, full of smoke, cob- 
webs hanging on the black beams, those old sword- 
ers and young men drinking, shouting, and beating 
the tables like crazy people ; and behind, in the 
shadow, old Annette Schnaps or Marie Héring—her 
old wig stuck back on her head, her comb with only 
three teeth remaining, crosswise, in it—gazing on 
the scene, or emptying a mug-to the health of the 
braves. 

It was sad to see the sons of peasants, honest and 
laborious fellows, leading such an existence ; but no 
one thought of working, and any one of them would 
have given his life for two farthings. Worn out 
with shouting, drinking, and internal grief, they 
ended by falling asleep over the table, while the 
old fellows emptied their cups, singing : 


*¢ Tis glory calls us on!” 


ie RTH 
Mi 


i 


ee, 
TF 4ld 


CELE Ly 
: SS Sy) 


awn oP 





THEY RELATED, WITH MAJESTIC AIR, THEIR BATTLES, THEIR MARCHES, 
AND THEIR DUELS. 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 79 


I saw these things, and I blessed heaven for hav- 
ing given me, in my wretchedness, kind hearts to 
keep up my courage, and prevent my falling into 
such hands. 

This state of affairs lasted until the twenty-fifth 
of January. For some days a great number of 
Italian conscripts—Piedmontese and Genoese—had 
been arriving in the city ; some stout and fat as 
Savoyards fed upon chestnuts—their cocked hats on 
their curly heads ; their linsey-woolsey pantaloons 
dyed a dark green, and their short vests also of wool, 
but brick-red, fastened around their waists by a 
leather belt. They wore enormous shoes, and ate 
their cheese seated along the old market-place. Oth- 
ers were dried up, lean, brown, shivering in their 
long cassocks, seeing nothing but snow upon the 
roofs and gazing with their large, black, mournful 
eyes upon the women who passed. They were ex- 
ercised every day in marching, and were going to fill 
up the skeleton of the Sixth regiment of the line at 
Mayence, and were then resting for a while in the 
infantry barracks. 

The captain of the recruits, who was named 
Vidal, lodged over our room. He was a square- 
built, solid, very strong-looking man, and was, too, 
very kind and civil. He came to us to have his 
watch repaired, and when he learned that I was a 


80 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


conscript and was afraid I should never return, he 
encouraged me, saying that it was all habit ; that at 
the end of five or six months one fights and marches 
as he eats his dinner ; and that many so accustom 
themselves to shooting at people that they consider 
themselves unhappy when they are deprived of that 
amusement. 

But his mode of reasoning was not to my taste ; 
the more so as I saw five or six large grains of pow- 
der on one of his cheeks, which had entered deeply, 
and as he explained to me that they came from a 
shot which a Russian fired almost under his nose, 
such a life disgusted me more and more, and as sev- 
eral days had already passed without news, I began 
to think they had forgotten me, as they did Jacob, 
of Chévre Hof, of whose extraordinary luck every 
one yet talks. Aunt Grédel herself said to me every 
time I went there, “ Well, well! they will let us 
alone after all!” When, on the morning of the 
twenty-fifth of January, as I was about starting for 
Quatre-Vents, Monsieur Goulden, who was working 
at his bench with a thoughtful air, turned to me with 
tears in his eyes and said : 

“‘ Listen, Joseph ! I wanted to let you have one 
night more of quiet sleep ; but you must know now, 
my child, that yesterday evening the brigadier of 
the gendarmes brought me your marching orders. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 81 


You go with the Piedmontese and Genoese and five 
or six young men of the city—young Klipfel, young 
Leerig, Jean Léger, and Gaspard Zébédé. You go 
to Mayence.” 

I felt my knees give way as he spoke, and I sat 
down unable to speak. Monsieur Goulden took my 
marching orders, beautifully written, out of a 
drawer, and began to read them slowly. All that I 
remember is that Joseph Bertha, native of Dabo, 
Canton of Phalsbourg, Arrondissement of Sarre- 
bourg, was incorporated in the Sixth regiment of the 
line, and that he was to join his corps the twenty- 
ninth of January at Mayence. 

This letter produced as bad an effect on me as if I 
had known nothing of it before. It seemed some- 
thing new, and I grew angry. 

Monsieur Goulden, after a moment’s silence, 
added : 

“ The Italians start to-day at eleven.” 

Then, as if awakening from a horrible dream, I 
eried : 

“ But shall I not see Catharine again?” — 

“Yes, Joseph, yes,” said he, in a trembling 
voice. “TI notified Mother Grédel and Catharine, 
and thus, my boy, they will come, and you can em- 
brace them before leaving.” 


I saw his grief, and it made me sadder yet, so that 
6 


82 THE STORY OF A €ONSCRIPT 


IT had a hard struggle to keep myself from bursting 
into tears. } 

He continued after a pause : 

“You need not be anxious about anything, 
Joseph. I have prepared all beforehand ; and 
when you return, if it please God to keep me so long 
in this world, you will find me always the same. I 
am beginning to grow old, and my greatest happi- 
ness would be to keep you for a son, for I found you 
good-hearted and honest. I would have given you 
what I possess, and we would have been happy to- 
gether. Catharine and you would have been my 
children. But since it is otherwise, let us be re- 
signed. It is only for a little while. You will be 
sent back, Iam sure. They will soon see that you 
cannot make long marches.” 

While he spoke, I sat silently sobbing, my face 
buried in my hands. 

At last he arose and took from a closet a soldier’s 
knapsack of cowskin, which he placed upon the 
table. I looked at him, thinking of nothing but the 
pain of parting. 

“Here is your knapsack,” he added; “and I 
have put in it all that you require ; two linen shirts, 
two flannel waistcoats, and all the rest. You will 
receive at Mayence two soldier’s shirts,—all that 
you will need ; but I have made for you some 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 83 


shoes, for nothing is worse than those given the sol- 
diers, which are almost always of horse-hide and 
chafe the feet fearfully. You are none too strong 
in your leg, my poor boy. Well, well, that is all.” 

He placed the knapsack upon the table and sat 
down. 

Without, we heard the Italians making ready to 
depart. Above us Captain Vidal was giving his or- 
ders. He had his horse at the barracks of the 
gendarmerie, and was telling his orderly to see that 
he was well rubbed and had received his hay. 

All this bustle and movement produced a strange 
effect upon me, and I could not yet realize that L 
must quit the city. As I was thus in the greatest 
distress, the door opened and Catharine entered 
weeping, while Mother Grédel cried out : 

“ T told you you should have fled to Switzerland ; 
that these rogues would finish by carrying you off. 
I told you so, and you would not believe me.” 

“ Mother Grédel,” replied Monsieur Goulden, 
“to go to do his duty is not so great an evil as to be 
despised by honest people. Instead of all these 
cries and reproaches, which serve no good purpose, 
you would do better to comfort and encourage Jo- 
seph.” | 

“ Ah!” said she ; “Ido not reproach him, al- 
though this is terrible.” 


84 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Catharine did not leave me ; she sat by me and 
we embraced each other, and she said, pressing my 
arm : : 

“You will return?” 

“Yes, yes,” said I, in a low voice. “ And you 
—you will always think of me ; you will not love 
another? ” 

She answered, sobbing : 

“'No,no! Iwill never love any but you.” 

This lasted a quarter of an hour, when the door 
opened and Captain Vidal entered, his cloak rolled 
like a hunting-horn over his shoulder. 

“Well,” said he, “well; how goes our young 
man?” 

“ Here he is,”’ answered Monsieur Goulden. 

“ Ah!” remarked the captain ; “ you are mak- 
ing yourself miserable. Itisnatural. I remember 
when I departed for the army. We have all a 
home.” 

Then, raising his voice, he said : 

“ Come, come, young man, courage! Weare no 
longer children.” 

He looked at Catharine. 

“T see all,” said he to Monsieur Goulden. “TI 
can understand why he does not want to go.” 

The drums beat in the street and he added : 

“ We have yet twenty minutes before starting,” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 85 


and, throwing a glance at me, “ Do not fail to be at 
the first call, young man,” said he, pressing Mon- 
sieur Goulden’s hand. 

He went out, and we heard his horse pawing at 
the door. 

The morning was overcast, and grief over- 
whelmed me. I could not leave Catharine. 

Suddenly the roll beat. The drums were all 
collected in the square. Monsieur Goulden, 
taking the knapsack by its straps, said in a grave 
voice: 

“ Joseph, now the last embrace: it is time to go.” 

I stood up, pale as ashes. He fastened the knap- 
- sack to my shoulders. Catharine sat sobbing, her 
face covered with her apron. Aunt Grédel looked 
on with lips compressed. 

The roll continued for a time, then suddenly 
ceased. 

“ The call is about commencing,” said Monsieur 
Goulden, embracing me. Then the fountains of 
his heart burst forth ; tears sprang to his eyes ; and 
calling me his child, his son, he whispered, “‘ Cour- 
age |” 

Aunt Grédel seated herself again, and as I bent 
toward her, taking my head between her hands, she 
sobbed : 

“T always loved you, Joseph ; ever since you 


86 - THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


were a baby. You never gave me cause of grief— 
and now you must go. OGod! O God!” 

I wept no longer. 

When Aunt Grédel released me, I looked a mo- 
ment at Catharine, who stood motionless. I rushed 
to her and threw myself on her neck. She still kept 
her seat. Then I turned quickly to go, when she 
cried, in heart-breaking tones : 

“O Joseph ! Joseph ! ” 

I looked back. We threw ourselves into each 
other’s arms, and for some minutes remained so, sob- 
bing. Her strength seemed to leave her, and I 
placed her in the arm-chair, and rushed out of the 
house. 

I was already on the square, in the midst of 
the Italians and of a crowd of people crying for 
their sons or brothers. I saw nothing; I heard 
nothing. 

When the roll of the drums began again, I looked 
around, and saw that I was between Klipfel and 
Furst, all three with our knapsacks on our backs. 
Their parents stood before us, weeping as if at their 
funeral. ‘To the right, near the town-hall, Captain 
Vidal, on his little gray horse, was conversing with 
two infantry officers. The sergeants called the roll, 
and we answered. They called Zébédé, Furst, Klip- 
fel, Bertha ; we answered like the others. Then 


“TOOK YONDER.” 








THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 87 


the captain gave the word, “ March!” and we 
went, two abreast, toward the French gate. 

At the corner of Spitz’s bakery, an old woman 
cried, in a choking voice, from a window : 

“ Kasper ! Kasper ! ” 

It was Zébédé’s grandmother. His lips trem- 
bled. He waved his hand without replying, and 
passed on with downcast face. 

I shuddered at the thought of passing my home. 
As we neared it, my knees trembled, and I heard 
some one call at the window ; but I turned my head 
toward the “ Red Ox,” and the rattle of the drums 
drowned the voices. 

The children ran after us, shouting : 

“ There goes Joseph ! there goes Klipfel ! ” 

Under the French gate, the men on guard, drawn 
up in line on each side, gazed on us as we passed at 
shoulder arms. We passed the outposts, and the 
drum ceased playing as we turned to the right. 
Nothing was heard but the plash of footsteps in the 
mud, for the snow was melting. 

We had passed the farm-house of Gerberhoff, and 
were going to the great bridge, when I heard some 
one callme. It was the captain, who cried from his 
horse : 

“Very well done, young man; I am satisfied 
with you.” 


88 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Hearing this, I could not help again bursting into 
tears, and the big Furst, too, wept, as we marched 
along ; the others, pale as marble, said nothing. At 
the bridge, Zébédé took out his pipe to smoke. In 
front of us, the Italians talked and laughed among 
themselves ; their three weeks of service had accus- 
tomed them to this life. 

Once on the way to Metting, more than a league 
from the city, as we began to descend, Klipfel 
touched me on the shoulder, and whispered : 

“ Look yonder.” 

T looked, and saw Phalsbourg far beneath us ; the 
barracks, the magazines, the steeple whence I had 
seen Catharine’s home six weeks before, with old 
_ Brainstein—all were in the gray distance, with the 
woods all around. I would have stopped a few mo- 
ments, but the squad marched on, and I had to keep 
pace with them. We entered Metting. 


Vill 


I'nat same day we went as far as Bitche ; the 
aext, to Hornbach ; then to Kaiserslautern. It be- 
gan to snow again. 

How often during that long march did I sigh for 
the thick cloak of Monsieur Goulden, and his doub- 
le-soled shoes. 

We passed through innumerable villages, some- 
times on the mountains, sometimes in the plains. 
As we entered each little town, the drums began to 
beat, and we marched with heads erect, marking 
the step, trying to assume the mien of old soldiers. 
The people looked out of their little windows, or 
came to the doors, saying, “There go the con- 
scripts ! ” 

At night we halted, glad to rest our weary feet 
—I, especially. I cannot say that my leg hurt me, 
but my feet ! I had never undergone such fatigue. 
With our billet for lodging we had the right to a cor- 
ner of the fire, but our hosts also gave us a place at 
the table. We had nearly always buttermilk and 
potatoes, and often fresh cheese or a dish of sauer- 

89 


go THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


kraut. The children came to look at us, and the old 
women asked us from what place we came, and what 
our business was before we left home. The young 
girls looked sorrowfully at us, thinking of their 
sweethearts, who had gone five, six, or seven months 
before. Then they would take us to their son’s bed. 
With what pleasure I stretched out my tired limbs ! 
How I wished to sleep all our twelve hours’ halt ! 
But early in the morning, at daybreak, the rattling 
of the drums awoke me. I gazed at the brown raft- 
ers of the ceiling, the window-panes covered with 
frost, and asked myself where I was. Then my 
heart would grow cold, as I thought that I was at 
Bitche—at Kaiserslautern—that I was a conscript ; 
and I had to dress fast as I could, catch up my knap- 
sack, and answer the roll-call. 

“A good journey to you!” said the hostess, 
awakened so early in the morning. 

“Thank you,” replied the conscript. 

And we marched on. 

Yes ! agood journey to you! They will not see 
you again, poor wretch ! How many others have 
followed the same road ! 

T will never forget how at Kaiserslautern, the sec- 
ond day of our march, having unstrapped my knap- 
sack to take out a white shirt, I discovered, beneath, 
a little pocket, and opening it I found fifty-four 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT gI 


francs in six-livre pieces. On the paper wrapped 
around them were these words, written by Monsieur 
Goulden : 

“While you are at the wars, be always good and 
honest. Think of your friends and of those for 
whom you would be willing to sacrifice your life, 
and treat the enemy with humanity that they may 
so treat our soldiers. May Heaven guide you, and 
protect you in your dangers! You will find some 
money enclosed ; for it is a good thing, when far 
from home and all who love you, to have a little of 
it. Write to us as often as youcan. I embrace 
you, my child, and press you to my heart.” 

As I read this, the tears forced themselves to my 
eyes, and I thought, “ Thou are not wholly aban- 
doned, Joseph : fond hearts are yearning toward 
you. Never forget their kind counsels.” 

At last, on the fifth day, about ten o’clock in the 
evening, we entered Mayence. As long as I live I 
will remember it. It was terribly cold. We had 
begun our march at early dawn, and long before 
reaching the city, had passed through villages filled 
with soldiers—cavalry, infantry, dragoons in their 
short jackets—some digging holes in the ice to get 
water for their horses, others dragging bundles of 
forage to the doors of the stables ; powder-wagons, 
earts full of cannon-balls, all white with frost, stood 


92 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


on every side ; couriers, detachments of artillery, 
pontoon-trains, were coming and going over the 
white ground ; and no more attention was paid to 
us than if we were not in existence. 

Captain Vidal, to warm himself, had dismounted 
and marched with us on foot. The officers and 
sergeants hastened us on. Five or six Italians had 
fallen behind and remained in the villages, no 
longer able to advance. My feet were sore and 
burning, and at the last halt I could scarcely rise to 
resume the march. The others from Phalsbourg, 
however, kept bravely on. 

Night had fallen ; the sky sparkled with stars. 
Every one gazed forward, and said to his comrade, 
“ Weare nearing it ! we are nearing it !” for along 
the horizon a dark line of seeming cloud, glittering 
here and there with flashing points, told that a great 
city lay before us. 

At last we entered the advanced works, and 
passed through the zigzag earthen bastions. Then 
we dressed our ranks and marked the step, as we usu- 
ally did when approaching a town. At the corner 
of a sort of demilune we saw the frozen fosse of the 
city, and the brick ramparts towering above, and op- 
posite us an old, dark gate, with the drawbridge 
raised. Above stood a sentinel, who, with his mus- 
ket raised, cried out : 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 93° 


“Who goes there? ” 

The captain, going forward alone, replied : 

“ France |” 

“ What regiment?” 

“ Recruits for the Sixth of the Line.” 

A silence ensued. Then the drawbridge was 
lowered, and the guard turned out and examined us, 
one of them carrying a great torch. Captain Vidal, 
a few paces in advance of us, spoke to the command- 
ant of the post, who called out at length : 

“ Pass when you please.” 

Our drums began to beat, but the captain ordered 
them to cease, and we crossed a long bridge and 
passed through a second gate like the first. Then 
we were in the streets of the city, which were paved 
with smooth round stones. Every one tried his best 
to march steadily ; for, although it was night, all 
the inns and shops along the way were opened and 
their large windows were shining, and hundreds of 
people were passing to and fro as if it were broad 
day. 

We turned five or six corners and goon arrived in 
a little open place before a high barrack, where we 
were ordered to halt. 

There was a shed at the corner of the barrack, and 
in it a cantiniére seated behind a small table, under 
a great tri-colored umbrella from which hung two 
lanterns. 


94 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Several officers came up as soon as we halted ; 
they were the Commandant Gémeau and some 
others whom I have since known. They pressed our 
captain’s hand laughing, then looked at us and 
ordered the roll to be called. After that, we each 
received a ration of bread and a billet for lodging. 
We were told that roll-call would take place the next 
morning at eight o’clock for the distribution of 
arms, and then we were ordered to break ranks, 
while the officers turned up a street to the left and 
went into a great coffee-house, the entrance of 
which was approached by a flight of fifteen steps. 

But we, with our billets for lodging—what were 
we to do with them in the middle of such a city, and, 
above all, the Italians, who did not know a word 
either of German or French? 

My first idea was to see the cantiniére under her 
umbrella. She was an old Alsatian, round and 
chubby, and, when I asked for the Capougner- 
Strasse, she replied : 

“ What will you pay for?” 

I was obliged to take a glass of brandy with her ; 
then she said : 

“Look just opposite there ; if you turn the first 
corner to the right, you will find the Capougner- 
Strasse. Good-evening, conscript.” 

She laughed. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 05 


Big Furst and Zébédé were also billeted in the 
Capougner-Strasse, and we set out, glad enough to 
be able to limp together through the strange city. 

Furst found his house first, but it was shut ; and 
while he was knocking at the door, I found mine, 
which had a light in two windows. I pushed at the 
door, it opened, and I entered a dark alley, whence 
came a smell of fresh bread, which was very wel- 
come. Zébédé had to go farther on. 

I called out in the alley : 

“ Ts any one here? ” 

Just then an old woman appeared with a candle 
at the top of a wooden staircase. 

“ What do you want?” she asked. 

I told her that I was billeted at her house. She 
came downstairs, and, looking at my billet, told me 
in German to follow her. 

I ascended the stairs. Passing an open door, I 
saw two men naked to the waist at work before an 
oven. I was, then, at a baker’s, and her having so 
much work accounted for the old woman being up 
so late. She wore a cap with black ribbons, a large ~ 
blue apron, and her arms were bare to the elbows ; 
she, too, had been working, and seemed very sorrow- 
ful. She led me into a good-sized room with a 
porcelain stove and a bed at the farther end. 

“ You come late,” she said. 


96 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“We were marching all day,” I replied, “ and I 
am fainting with hunger and weariness.” 

She looked at me and I heard her say : 

“ Poor child ! poor child! Well, take off your 
shoes and put on these sabots.” 

Then she made me sit before the stove, and 
asked: 

“ Are your feet sore? ” 

“Yes, they have been so for three days.” 

She put the candle upon the table and went out. 
I took off my coat and shoes. My feet were blis- 
tered and bleeding, and pained me horribly, and I 
felt for the moment as if it would almost be better to 
die at once than continue in such suffering. 

This thought had more than once arisen to my 
mind in the march, but now, before that good fire, I 
felt so worn, so miserable, that I would gladly have 
lain myself down to sleep forever, notwithstanding 
Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and all who loved me. 
Truly, I needed God’s assistance. 

While these thoughts were running through my 
head, the door opened, and a tall, stout man, gray- 
haired, but yet strong and healthy, entered. He 
was one of those I had seen at work below, and held 
in his hands a bottle of wine and two glasses. 

“‘ Good-evening !” said he, gravely and kindly. 

I looked up. The old woman was behind him. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 97 


She was carrying a little wooden tub, which she 
placed on the floor near my chair. 

“ Take a foot-bath,” said she ; “it will do you 
good.” 

This kindness on the part of a stranger affected 
me more than I cared to show, and I thought : 
“ There are kind people in the world.” I took off 
my stockings ; my feet were bleeding, and the good 
old dame repeated, as she gazed at them : 

“ Poor child ! poor child ! ” 

The man asked me whence I came. I told him 
from Phalsbourg in Lorraine. Then he told his 
wife to bring some bread, adding that, after we had 
taken a glass of wine together, he would leave me 
to the repose I needed so much. 

He pushed the table before me, as I sat with my 
feet in the bath, and we each drained a glass of good 
white wine. The old woman returned with some 
hot bread, over which she had spread fresh, half- 
melted butter. Then I knew how hungry I was. 
I was almost ill. The good people saw my eager- 
ness for food ; for the woman said : 

“ Before eating, my child, you must take your 
feet out of the bath.” : 

She knelt down and dried my feet with her 
apron before I knew what she was about to do. I 
cried: 

7 


98 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“Good Heavens ! madame ; you treat me as if 
I were your son.” 

She replied, after a moment’s mournful silence : 

“We have a son in the army.” 

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and my heart 
bled within me. I thought of Catharine and Aunt 
Grédel, and could not speak again. I ate and drank 
with a pleasure I never before felt in doing so. The 
two old people sat gazing kindly on me, and, when I 
had finished, the man said : 

“Yes, we have a son in the army ; he went to 
Russia last year, and we have not since heard from 
him. These wars are terrible ! ” 

He spoke dreamily, as if to himself, all the while 
walking up and down the room, his hands crossed 
behind his back. My eyes began to close when he 
said suddenly : 

“Come, wife. Good-night, conscript.” 

They went out together, she carrying the tub. 

“God reward you,” I cried, “and bring your 
son safe home ! ” 

In a minute I was undressed, and, sinking on the 
bed, I was almost immediately buried in a deep 


sleep. 


Ix 


Tue next morning I awoke at about seven o’clock. 
A trumpet was sounding the recall at the corner of 
the street ; horses, wagons, and men and women on 
foot were hurrying past the house. My feet were 
yet somewhat sore, but nothing to what they had 
been ; and when I had dressed, I felt like a new 
man, and thought to myself : 

“ Joseph, if this continues, you will soon be a sol- 
dier. It is only the first step that costs.” 

I dressed in this cheerful mood. The baker’s 
wife had put my shoes to dry before the fire, after 
filling them with hot ashes to keep them from grow- 
ing hard. They were well greased and shining. 

Then I buckled on my knapsack, and hurried out, 
without having time to thank those good people—a 
duty I intended to fulfil after roll-call. At the end 
of the street—on the square—many of our Italians 
were already waiting, shivering around the foun- 
tain. Furst, Klipfel, and Zébédé arrived a moment 
after. 

Cannon and their caissons covered one entire side 

99 


100 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


of the square. Horses were being brought to water, 
led by hussars and dragoons. Opposite us were 
cavalry barracks, high as the church at Phalsbourg, 
while around the other three sides rose old houses 
with sculptured gables, like those at Saverne, but 
much larger. I had never seen, anything like all 
this, and while I stood gazing around, the drums 
began to beat, and each man took his place in the 
ranks, and we were informed, first in Italian and 
then in French, that we were about to receive our 
arms, and each one was ordered to stand forth as his 
name was called. 

The wagons containing the arms now came up, 
and the call began. Each received a cartouche-box, 
a sabre, a bayonet, anda musket. We put them on 
as well as we could, over our blouses, coats or great- 
coats, and we looked, with our hats, our caps, and 
our arms, like a veritable band of banditti. My 
musket was so long and heavy that I could scarcely 
carry it ; and the Sergeant Pinto showed me how to 
buckle on the cartouche-box. He was a fine fellow, 
Pinto. 

So many belts crossing my chest made me feel as 
if I could scarcely breathe, and I saw at once that 
my miseries had not yet ended. 

After the arms, an ammunition-wagon advanced, 
and they distributed fifty rounds of cartridges to 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT Iol 


each man. ‘This was no pleasant augury. Then, 
instead of ordering us to break ranks and return to 
our lodgings, Captain Vidal drew his sabre and 
shouted : 

“ By file right—march ! ” 

The drums began to beat. I was grieved at not 
being able to thank my hosts for their kindness, and 
thought that they would consider me ungrateful. 
But that did not prevent my following the line of 
march. 

We passed through a long winding street, and 
soon found ourselves without the glacis, and near 
the frozen Rhine. Across the river high hills ap- 
peared, and on the hills, old, gray, ruined castles, 
like those of Haut-Bas and Géroldseck in the Vos- 
ges. 
The battalion descended to the river-bank, and 
crossed upon the ice. The scene was magnificent— 
dazzling. We were not alone on the ice ; five or 
six hundred paces before us there was a train of pow- 
der wagons guarded by artillerymen on the way to 
Frankfort. Crossing the river we continued our 
march for five hours through the mountains. Some- 
times we discovered villages in the defiles; and 
Zébédé, who was next to me, said : 

“ As we had to leave home, I would rather go as 
a soldier than otherwise. At least we shall see 


102 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


something new every day, and, if we are lucky 
enough ever to return, how much we will have to 
talk of !” 

“Yes,” said I ; “ but I would like better to have 
less to talk about, and to live quietly, toiling on my 
own account and not on account of others, who re- 
main safe at home while we climb about here on the 
ice.” 

“You do not care for glory,” said he ; “ and yet 
glory is something.” 

And I answered him : 

“Glory is not for such as we, Zébédé ; it is for 
others who live well, eat well, and sleep well. They 
have dancings and rejoicings, as we see by the ga- 
zettes, and glory too in the bargain, when we have 
won it by dint of sweat, fasting and broken bones. 
But poor wretches like us, forced away from home, 
when at last they return, after losing their habits of 
labor and industry, and, mayhap a limb, get but lit- 
tle of your glory. Many a one, among their old 
friends—no better men than they—who were not, 
perhaps so good workmen, have made money during 
the conscript’s seven years of war, have opened a 
shop, married their sweethearts, had pretty children, 
are men of position—city councillors—notables. 
And when the others, who have returned from seek- 
ing glory by killing their fellow-men, pass by with 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 103 


their chevrons on their arms, those old friends turn 
a cold shoulder upon them, and if the soldier has a 
red nose through drinking brandy which was neces- 
sary to keep his blood warm in the rain, the snow, 
the forced march, while they were drinking good 
wine, they say—‘ There goes a drunkard !’ and the 
poor conscript, who only asked to be let stay at home 
and work, becomes a sort of beggar. This is what 
I think about the matter, Zébédé ; I cannot see the 
justice of all this, and I would rather have these 
friends of glory go fight themselves, and leave us to 
remain in peace at home.” 

“Well,” he replied, “I think much as you do, 
but, as we are forced to fight, it is as well to say that 
we are fighting for glory. If we go about looking 
miserable, people will laugh at us.” 

Conversing thus, we reached a large river, which, 
the sergeant told us, was the Main, and near it, upon 
our road, was a little village. We did not know the 
name of the village, but there we halted. 

We entered the houses, and those who could 
bought some brandy, wine, and bread. Those who 
had no money crunched their ration of biscuits, and 
gazed wistfully at their more fortunate comrades. 

About five in the evening we arrived at Frank- 
fort, which is a city yet older than Mayence, and 
full of Jews. They took us to a place called Saxen- 


104 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


hausen, where the Tenth Hussars and the Baden 
Chasseurs were in barracks,—old buildings which 
were formerly a hospital, as I was told and believe, 
for within there was a large yard, with arches under 
the walls ; beneath these arches the horses were 
stabled, and in the rooms above, the men. 

We arrived at this place after passing through 
innumerable little streets, so narrow that we could 
scarcely see the stars between the chimneys. Cap- 
tain Florentin, and the two lieutenants, Clavel and 
Bretonville, were awaiting us. After roll-call our 
sergeants led us by detachments to the rooms above 
the Chasseurs. They were great halls with little 
windows, and between the windows were the beds. 

Sergeant Pinto hung his lantern to the pillar in 
the middle ; each man placed his piece in the rack, 
and then took off his knapsack, his blouse and his 
shoes, without speaking. Zébédé was my bed-fel- 
low. God knows we were sleepy enough. ‘Twenty 
minutes after, we were buried in slumber. 


x 


Ar Frankfort I learned to understand military 
life. Up to that time I had been but a simple 
conscript, then I became a soldier. I do not speak 
merely of drill,—the way of turning the head right 
or left, measuring the steps, lifting the hand to the 
height of the first or second band to load, aiming, 
recovering arms at the word of command—that is 
only an affair of a month or two, if a man really de- 
sires to learn; but I speak of discipline—of re- 
membering that the corporal is always in the right 
when he speaks to a private soldier, the sergeant 
when he speaks to the corporal, the sergeant-major 
when speaking to the sergeant, the second lieuten- 
ant when he orders the sergeant-major, and so on to 
the Marshal of France—even if the superior asserts 
that two and two make five, or that the moon shines 
at midday. 

This is very difficult to learn; but there is one 
thing that assists you immensely, and that is a sort 
of placard hung up in every room in the barracks, 


and which is from time to time read to you. This 
105 


106 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


placard presupposes everything that a soldier might 
wish to do, as, for instance, to return home, to re- 
fuse to serve, to resist his officer, and always ends 
by speaking of death, or at least five years with a 
ball and chain. 

The day after our arrival at Frankfort I wrote 
to Monsieur Goulden, to Catharine, and to Aunt 
Grédel. You may imagine how sadly. It seemed 
to me, in addressing them, that I was yet at home. 
I told them of the hardships I had undergone, of 
the good luck that had happened to me at Mayence, 
and the courage it required not to drop behind in 
the march. I told them that I was in good health, 
for which I thanked God, and that I was even 
stronger than before I left home, and sent them a 
thousand remembrances. Our Phalsbourg con- 
scripts, who saw me writing, made me add a few 
words for each of their families. I wrote also to 
Mayence, to the good couple of the Capougner- 
Strasse, who had been so kind to me, telling them 
how I was forced to march without being able to 
thank them, and asking their forgiveness for so 
doing. 

That day, in the afternoon, we received our uni- 
forms. Dozens of Jews made their appearance and 
bought our old clothes. I kept only my shoes and 
stockings. The Italians had great difficulty in mak- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 107 


ing these respectable merchants comprehend their 
‘wishes, but the Genoese were as cunning as the 
Jews, and their bargainings lasted until night. 
Our corporals received more than one glass of wine; 
it was policy to make friends of them, for morning 
and evening they taught us the drill in the snow- 
covered yard. The cantiniere Christine was always 
at her post with a warming-pan under her feet. 
She took young men of good family into special 
favor, and the young men of good family were all 
those who spent their money freely. Poor fools! 
How many of them parted with their last sow in 
return for her miserable flattery! When that was 
gone they were mere beggars ; but vanity rules all, 
from the conscripts to the generals. 

All this time recruits were constantly arriving 
from France, and ambulances full of -wounded 
from Poland. What a sight was that before the 
hospital Saint Esprit on the other side of the river! 
It was a procession without an end. All these poor 
wretches were frost-bitten; some had their noses, 
some their ears frozen, others an arm, others a leg! 
They were laid in the snow to prevent them from 
dropping to pieces. Others got out of the carts 
clinging and holding on, and looked at you like 
wild beasts, their eyes sunk in their heads, their 
hair bristling up: the gypsies who sleep in nooks in 


108 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


the woods would have had pity on them; and yet 
these were the best off, because they escaped from 
the carnage, while thousands of their comrades had 
perished in the snow, or on the battle-field. Klip- 
fel, Zébédé, Furst, and I often went to see ‘these 
poor wretches, and never did we see men so misera- 
bly clad. Some wore jackets which once belonged 
to Cossacks, crushed shakos, women’s dresses, and 
many had only handkerehiefs wound round their 
feet in lieu of shoes and stockings. They gave us a 
history of the retreat from Moscow, and then we 
knew that the twenty-ninth bulletin told only truth. 
These stories enraged our men against the Rus- 
sians. Many said, “If the war would only begin 
again, they would have a hard job of it then: it is 
not over! it is not over!” I was at times almost 
overcome with wrath after hearing some tale of hor- 
ror; and sometimes I thought to myself, ‘“ Joseph, 
are you not losing your wits? These Russians are 
defending their families, their homes, all that man 
holds most dear. We hate them for defending 
themselves; we would have despised them had they 
not done so.” 
But about this time an extraordinary event oc- 
curred. 

You must know that my comrade, Zébédé, was 
the son of the gravedigger of Phalsbourg, and 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 109 


sometimes between ourselves we called him 
“ Gravedigger.” This he took in good part from 
us; but one evening after drill, as he was crossing 
the yard, a hussar cried out: 

“ Halloo, Gravedigger! help me to drag in these 
bundles of straw.” 

Zébédé, turning about, replied: 

“ My name is not Gravedigger, and you can drag 
in your own straw. Do you take me for a fool?” 

Then the other cried in a still louder tone: 

“ Conscript, you had better come, or beware 

Zébédé, with his great hooked nose, his gray eyes 
and thin lips, never bore too good a character for 
mildness. He went up to the hussar and asked: 

“ What is that you say?” 

“T tell you to take up those bundles of straw, 
and quickly, too. Do you hear, conscript? ” 

He was quite an old man, with mustaches and 
red, bushy whiskers. Zébédé seized one of the 
latter, but received two blows in the face. Never- 
theless, a fist-full of the whisker remained in his 
grasp, and, as the dispute had attracted a crowd to 
the spot, the hussar shook his finger, saying: 

“You will hear from me to-morrow, conscript.” 

“Very good,” returned Zébédé; “ we shall see. 
You will probably hear from me too, veteran.” 

He came immediately after to tell me all this, 


1» 


IIo THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


and I, knowing that he had never handled a weapon 
more warlike than a pickaxe, could not help trem- 
bling for him. 

“ Listen, Zébédé,” I said; “ all that there now 
remains for you to do, since you do not want to 
desert, is to ask pardon of this old fellow; for those 
veterans all know some fearful tricks of fence which 
they have brought from Egypt or Spain, or some- 
where else. If you wish, I will lend you a crown 
to pay for a bottle of wine to make up the quarrel.” 

But he, knitting his brows, would hear none of 
this. 

“Rather than beg his pardon,” said he, “I 
would go and hang myself. I laugh him and his 
comrades to scorn. If he has tricks of fence, I 
have a long arm, that will drive my sabre through 
his bones as easily as his will penetrate my flesh.” 

The thought of the blows made him insensible 
to reason; and soon Chazy, the maitre @armes, 
Corporal Fleury, Furst, and Léger came in. They 
all said that Zébédé was in the right, and the 
maitre @armes added that blood alone could wash 
out the stain of a blow; that the honor of the re- 
cruits required Zébédé to fight. 

Zébédé answered proudly that the men of Phals- 
bourg had never feared the sight of a little blood, 
and that he was ready. Then the maitre d’armes 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT IIl 


went to see our Captain, Florentin, who was one 
of the most magnificent men imaginable—tall, 
well-formed, broad-shouldered, with regular feat- 
ures, and the Cross, which the Emperor had him- 
self given him at Eylau. The captain even went . 
further than the maitre @armes; he thought it 
would set the conscripts a good example, and that. 
if Zébédé refused to fight he would be unworthy 
to remain in the Third Battalion of the Sixth of the 
Line. 

All that night I could not close my eyes. I 
heard the deep breathing of my poor comrade as 
he slept, and I thought: ‘“ Poor Zébédé! another 
day, and you will breathe no more.” I shuddered 
to think how near I was to a man so near death. 
At last, as day broke, I fell asleep, when suddenly 
I felt a cold blast of wind strike me. I opened 
my eyes, and there I saw the old hussar. He had 
lifted up the coverlet of our bed, and said as I 
awoke : 

“Up, sluggard! I will show you what manner 
of man you struck.” 

Zébédé rose tranquilly, saying: 

“I was asleep, veteran; I was asleep.” 

The other, hearing himself thus mockingly 
called “ veteran,” would have fallen upon my com- 
rade in his bed; but two tall fellows who served 


112 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


him as seconds held him back, and, besides, the 
Phalsbourg men were there. 

“ Quick, quick! Hurry!” cried the old hussar. 

But Zébédé dressed himself calmly, without any 
haste. After a moment’s silence, he said: 

“Have we permission to go outside our quar- 
ters, old fellows? ” 

“There is room enough for us in the yard,” re- 
plied one of the hussars. 

Zébédé put on his great-coat, and, turning to me, 
said: 

“ Joseph and you, Klipfel, I choose for my sec- 
onds.” ) 

But I shook my head. 

“ Well, then, Furst,” said he. 

The whole party descended the stairs together. 
I thought Zébédé was lost, and thought it hard, 
that not only must the Russians seek our lives, but 
that we must seek each other’s. 

All the men in the room crowded to the win- 
dows. I alone remained behind upon my bed. At 
the end of five minutes the clash of sabres made 
my heart almost cease to beat; the blood seemed 
no longer to flow through my veins. 

But this did not last long; for suddenly Klipfel 
exclaimed, “‘ Touched! ” 

Then I made my way—I know not how—to a 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 113 


window, and, looking over the heads of the others, 
saw the old hussar leaning against the wall, and 
Zébédé rising, his sabre all dripping with blood. 
He had fallen upon his knees during the fight, 
and, while the old man’s sword pierced the air 
just above his shoulder, he plunged his blade 
into the hussar’s breast. If he had not slipped, 
he himself would have been run through and 
through. 

The hussar sank at the foot of the wall. His 
seconds lifted him in their arms, while Zébédé pale 
as a corpse, gazed at his bloody sabre, and Klipfel 
handed him his cloak. Almost immediately the 
reveille was sounded, and we went off to morning 
eall. 

These events happened on the eighteenth of 
February. The same day we received orders to 
pack our knapsacks, and left Frankfort for Se- 
ligenstadt, where we remained until the eighth of 
March, by which time all the recruits were well 
instructed in the use of the musket and the school 
of the platoon. From Seligenstadt we went to 
Schweinheim, and on the twenty-fourth of March, 
1813, joined the division at Aschaffenbourg, where 
Marshal Ney passed us in review. 

The captain of the company was named Flo- 


rentin; the lieutenant, Bretonville; the com- 
8 


114 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


mandant of the battalion, Gémeau; the captain, 
Vidal; the colonel, Zapfel; the general of brigade, 
Ladoucette; and the general of division, Souham. 
These are things that every soldier should know. 


XI 


Tue melting of the snows began about the mid- 
dle of March. I remember that during the great 
review of Aschaffenbourg, on a large open space 
whence one saw the Main as far as eye could reach, 
the rain never ceased to fall from ten o’clock in the 
morning till three o’clock in the afternoon. We 
had on our left a castle, from the windows of which 
people looked out quite at their ease, while. the 
water ran into our shoes. On the right the river 
rushed, foaming, seen dimly as if through a mist. 
Every moment, to keep us brightened up, the order 
rang out: 

“Carry arms! Shoulder arms! ” 

The Marshal advanced slowly, surrounded by 
his staff. What consoled Zébédé was, that we were 
about to see “‘ the bravest of the brave.” I thought 
“Tf I could only get a place at the corner of a 
good fire, I would gladly forego that pleasure.” 

At last he arrived in front of us, and I can yet 
see him, his chapeau dripping with rain, his blue 


115 


116 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


coat covered with embroidery and decorations, and 
his great boots. He was a handsome, florid man, 
with a short nose and sparkling eyes. He did not 
seem at all haughty; for, as he passed our com- 
pany, who presented arms, he turned suddenly in 
his saddle and said: 

“Hold! It is Florentin! ” 

Then the captain stood erect, not knowing what 
to reply. It seemed that the Marshal and he had 
been common soldiers together in the time of the 
Republic. The captain at last answered: 

“Yes, Marshal; it is Sebastian Florentin.” 

“Faith, Florentin,” said the Marshal, stretch- 
ing him arm toward Russia, ‘‘ I am glad to see you 
again. I thought we had left you there.” 

All our company felt honored, and Zébédé said: 
“ That is what I calla man. I would spill my blood 
for him.” . 

I could not see why Zébédé should wish to spill 
his blood because the Marshal had spoken a few 
words to an old comrade. 

That’s all I remember of Aschaffenbourg. 

In the evening we went in again to eat our soup 
at Schweinheim, a place rich in wines, hemp, and 
corn, where almost everybody looked at us with un- 
friendly eyes. 

We lodged by threes or fours in the houses, like 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 117 


so many bailiff’s men, and had meat every day, 
either beef, mutton, or bacon. 

Our bread was very good, as was also our wine. 
But many of our men pretended to find fault with 
everything, thinking thus to pass for people of 
consequence. They were mistaken; for more than 
once I heard the citizens say in German: 

“ Those fellows, in their own country, were only 
beggars. If they returned to France, they would 
find nothing but potatoes to live upon.” 

And the citizens were quite right; and I always 
found that people so difficult to please abroad were 
but poor wretches at home. For my part, I was 
well content to meet such good fare. Two con- 
scripts from St.-Dié were with me at the village- 
postmaster’s: his horses had almost all been taken 
for our cavalry. This could not have put him into 
a good humor; but he said nothing, and smoked his 
pipe behind the stove from morning till night. 
His wife was a tall, strong woman, and his two 
daughters were very pretty; they were afraid 
of us, and ran away when we returned from 
drill, or from mounting guard at the end of the 
village. 

On the evening of the fourth day, as we were fin- 
ishing our supper, an old man in a great-coat came 
in. His hair was white, and his mien and appear- 


118 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


ance neat and respectable. He saluted us, and then 
said to the master of the house, in German: 

“ These are recruits? ” 

“Yes, Monsieur Stenger,” replied the other, 
“we will never be rid of them. If I could poison 
them all, it would be a good deed.” 

I turned quietly, and said: 

“T understand German: do not speak in such a 
manner.” 

The postmaster’s pipe fell from his hand. 

“You are very imprudent in your speech, Mon- 
sieur Kalkreuth,” said the old man; “if others 
beside this young man had understood you, you 
know what would happen.” 

“Tt is only my way of talking,” replied the post- 
master. “‘ What can you expect? When every- 
thing is taken from you—when you are robbed, 
year after year—it is but natural that you should 
at last speak bitterly.” 

The old man, who was none other than the pastor 
of Schweinheim, then said to me: 

“Monsieur, your manner of acting is that of an 
honest man; believe me that Monsieur Kalkreuth 
is incapable of such a deed—of doing evil even to 
our enemies.” 

“T do believe it, sir,” I replied, “ or I should 
not eat so heartily of these sausages.” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT II9 


The postmaster, hearing these words, began to 
laugh, and, in the excess of his joy, cried: 

“ T would never have thought that a Frenchman 
could have made me laugh.” 

My two comrades were ordered for guard duty; 
they went, but I alone remained. Then the post- 
master went after a bottle of old wine, and seated 
himself at the table to drink with me, which I 
gladly agreed to. From that day until our depart- 
ure, these people had every confidence in: me. 
Every evening we chatted at the corner of the fire; 
the pastor came, and even the young girls would 
come downstairs to listen. They were of fair and 
light complexion, with blue eyes; one was perhaps 
eighteen, the other twenty; I thought I saw in 
them a resemblance to Catharine, and this made my 
heart beat. 

They knew that I had a sweetheart at home, 
because I could not help telling them so, and this 
made them pity me. 

The postmaster complained bitterly of the 
French, the pastor said they were a vain, immoral 
nation, and that on that account all Germany would 
soon rise against us; that they were weary of the 
evil doings of our soldiers and the cupidity of our 
generals, and had formed the T'ugend-Bund* to 


oppose us. 
* League of virtue. 


120 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“ At first,” said he, “ you talked to us of liberty: 
we liked to hear that, and our good wishes were 
rather for your armies than those of the King of 
Prussia and Emperor of Austria; you made war 
upon our soldiers and not upon us; you upheld 
ideas which every one thought great and just, and 
so you did not quarrel with peoples but only with 
their masters. To-day it is very different; all Ger- 
many is flying to arms; all her youth are rising, 
and it is we who talk of Liberty, of Virtue and of 
Justice to France. He who has them on his side is 
ever the stronger, because he has against him only 
the evil-minded of all nations, and has with him 
youth, courage, great ideas,—everything which lifts 
the soul above thoughts of self, and which urges 
man to sacrifice his life without regret. You have 
long had all this, but you wanted it no longer. 
Long ago, I well remember, your generals fought 
for Liberty, slept on straw, in barns, like simple 
soldiers ; they were men of might and terror; now 
they must have their sofas; they are more noble 
than our nobles and richer than our bankers. So 
it comes to pass that war, once so grand—once an 
art, a sacrifice—once devotion to one’s country— 
has become a trade, for sale at more than one mar- 
ket. It is, to be sure, very noble yet, since epau- 
lettes are yet worn, but there is a difference between 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 121 


fighting for immortal ideas and fighting merely to 
enrich one’s self. 

“ Tt is now our turn to talk of Liberty and Coun- 
try; and this is the reason why I think this war 
will be a sorrowful one for you. All thinking men, 
from simple students to professors of theology, are 
rising against you in arms. You have the greatest 
general of the world at your head, but we have 
eternal justice. You believe you have the Saxons, 
the Bavarians, the Badeners and the Hessians on 
your side; undeceive yourselves; the children of 
old Germany well know that the greatest crime, 
the greatest shame, is to fight against our brothers. 
Let kings make alliances; the people are against 
you in spite of them; they are defending their lives, 
their Fatherland—all that God makes us love and 
that we cannot betray without crime. All are 
ready to assail you; the Austrians would massacre 
you if they could, notwithstanding the marriage of 
Marie Louise with your Emperor; men begin to 
see that the interests of Kings are not the interests 
of all mankind, and that the greatest genius can- 
- not change the nature of things.” 

Thus would the pastor discourse gravely; but 
I did not then fully understand what he meant, 
and I thought, “ Words are only words; and bul- 
lets are bullets. If we only encounter students and 


122 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


professors of theology, all will go well, and disci- 
pline will keep the Hessians and Bavarians and 
Saxons from turning against us, as it forces us 
Frenchmen to fight, little as we may like it. Does 
not the soldier obey the corporal, the corporal the 
sergeant, and so on to the marshal, who does what 
the King wishes? One can see very well that this 
pastor never served in a regiment, for if he did he 
would know that ideas are nothing and orders 
everything; but I do not care to contradict him, 
for then the postmaster would bring me no more 
wine after supper. Let them think as they please. 
All that I hope is that we shall have only theolo- 
gians to fight.” 

While we used to chat thus, suddenly, on the 
morning of the twenty-seventh of March, the order 
for our departure came. The battalion rested that 
night at Lauterbach, the next at Neukirchen, and 
we did nothing but march, march, march. Those 
who did not grow accustomed to carrying the knap- 
sack could not complain of want of practice. How 
we travelled! I no longer sweated under my fifty 
cartridges in my cartouche-box, my knapsack on 
my back and my musket on my shoulder, and I do 
not know if I limped. 

We were not the only ones in motion; all were 
marching; everywhere we met regiments on the 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 123 


road, detachments of cavalry, long lines of cannon, 
ammunition trains—all advancing toward Erfurt, 
as after a heavy rain thousands of streams, by thou- 
sands of channels, seek the river. 

Our sergeants keep repeating, ‘“ We are near- 
ing them! there will be hot work soon; ” and we 
thought, “So much the better!” that those beg- 
garly Prussians and Russians had drawn their fate 
upon themselves. If they had remained quiet we 
would have been yet in France. 

These thoughts embittered us all toward the 
enemy, and as we met everywhere people who 
seemed to rejoice alone in fighting, Klipfel and 
Zébédé talked only of the pleasure it would give 
them to meet the Prussians; and I, not to seem less 
courageous than they, adopted the same strain. 

On the eighth of April, the battalion entered 
Erfurt, and I will never forget how, when we broke 
ranks before the barracks, a package of letters was 
handed to the sergeant of the company. Among 
the number was one for me, and I recognized Cath- 
arine’s writing at once. This affected me so that it 
made my knees tremble. Zébédé took my musket, 
telling me to read it, for he, too, was glad to hear 
from home. 

I put it in my pocket, and all our Phalsbourg 
men followed me to hear it, but I only commenced 


124 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


when I was quietly seated on my bed in the bar- 
racks, while they crowded around. Tears rolled 
down my cheeks as she told me how she rememberer 
and prayed for the far-off conscript. 

My comrades, as I read, exclaimed: 

“ And we are sure that there are some at home 
to pray for us, too.” 

One spoke of his mother, another of his sisters, 
and another of his sweetheart. 

At the end of the letter, Monsieur Gonldeas added 
a few words, telling me that all our friends were 
well, and that I should take courage, for our 
troubles could not last forever. He charged me 
to be sure to tell my comrades that their friends 
thought of them and complained of not having re- 
ceived a word from them. 

This letter was a consolation to us all. We knew 
that before many days passed we must be on the 
field of battle, and it seemed a last farewell from 
home for at least half of us. Many were never to 
hear again from their parents, friends, or those who 
loved them in this world. 


XIT 


But, as Sergeant Pinto said, all we had yet seen 
was but the prelude to the ball; the dance was now 
about to commence. 

Meanwhile we did duty at the citadel with a bat- 
talion of the Twenty-seventh, and from the top of 
the ramparts we saw all the environs covered with 
troops, some bivouacking, others quartered in the 
villages. 

The sergeant had formed a particular friendship 
for me, and on the eighteenth, on relieving guard 
at Warthau gate, he said: 

“ Fusilier Bertha, the Emperor has arrived.” 

I had yet heard nothing of this, and replied, re- 
spectfully: 

“IT have just had a little glass with the sapper 
Merlin, sergeant, who was on duty last night at 
the general’s quarters, and he said nothing of it.” 

Then he, closing his eye, said, with a peculiar 
expression : 

“Everything is moving; I feel his presence in 


the air. You do not yet understand this, conscript, 
125 


126 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


but he is here; everything says so. Before he came, 
we were lame, crippled; only a wing of the army 
seemed able to move at once. But now, look there, 
see those couriers galloping over the road; all is 
life. The dance is beginning: the dance is begin- 
ning! Kaiserliks and the Cossacks do not need 
spectacles to see that he is with us; they will feel 
him presently.” 

And the sergeant’s laugh rang hoarsely from be- 
neath his long mustaches. I had a presentiment 
that great misfortunes might be coming upon me, 
yet I was forced to put a good face upon it. But 
the sergeant was right, for that very day, about 
three in the afternoon, all the troops stationed 
around the city were in motion, and at five we were 
put under arms. The Marshal Prince of Moskowa 
entered the town surrounded by the officers and 
generals who composed his staff, and, almost imme- 
diately after, the gray-haired Souham followed and 
passed us in review upon the square. Then he 
spoke in a loud, clear voice so that every one could 
hear: ) 

“ Soldiers! ”’ said he, “ you will form part of the 
advance-guard of the Third corps. Try to remem- 
ber that you are Frenchmen. Vive l’Empereur!” 

All shouted “ Vive ?Empereur ! ” till the echoes 
rang again, while the general departed with Colo- 
nel Zapfel. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 127 


That night we were relieved by the Hessians, and 
left Erfurt with the Tenth hussars and a regiment 
of chasseurs. At six or seven in the morning we 
were before the city of Weimar, and saw the sun 
rising on its gardens, its churches, and its houses, 
as well as on an old castle to the right. Here we 
bivouacked, and the hussars went forward to re- 
connoitre the town. About nine, while we were 
breakfasting, suddenly we heard the rattle of mus- 
ketry and carbines. Our hussars had encountered 
the Prussian hussars in the streets, and they were 
firing on each other. But it was so far off, that we 
saw nothing of the combat. 

At the end of an hour the hussars returned, hav- 
ing lost two men. Thus began the campaign. 

We remained five days in our camp, while the 
whole Third corps were coming up. As we were 
the advance-guard, we started again by way of Sulza 
and Warthau. Then we saw the enemy; Cossacks 
who kept ever beyond the range of our guns, and 
the farther they retired the greater grew our cour- 
age. 

But it annoyed me to hear Zébédé constantly 
exclaiming in a tone of ill-humor: 

“Will they never stop; never make a stand! ” 

I thought that if they kept retreating we could 
ask nothing better. We would gain all we wanted 
without loss of life or suffering. 


128 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


But at last they halted on the farther side of the 
broad and deep river, and I saw a great number 
posted near the bank to cut us to pieces if we should 
cross unsupported. 

It was the twenty-ninth of April, and growing 
late. Never did I see a more glorious sunset. On 
the opposite side of the river stretched a wide plain 
as far as the eye could reach, and on this, sharply 
outlined against the glowing sky, stood horsemen, 
with their shakos drooping forward, their green 
jackets, little cartridge-boxes slung under the arm, 
and their sky-blue trousers; behind them glittered 
thousands of lances, and Sergeant Pinto recognized 
them as the Russian cavalry and Cossacks. He 
knew the river, too, which, he said, was the Saale. 

We went as near as we could to the water to ex- 
change shots with the horsemen, but they retired 
and at last disappeared entirely under the blood- 
red sky. We made our bivouac along the river, 
and posted our sentries. On our left was a large 
village; a detachment was sent to it to purchase 
meat; for since the arrival of the Emperor we had 
orders to pay for everything. 

During the night other regiments of the division 
came up; they, too, bivouacked along the bank, 
and their long lines of fires, reflected in the ever- 
moving waters, glared grandly through the dark- 
ness. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 129 


No one felt inclined to sleep. Zébédé, Klipfel, 
Furst, and I messed together, and we chatted as 
we lay around our fire: 

“To-morrow we will have it hot enough, if we 
attempt to cross the river! Our friends in Phals- 
bourg, over their warm suppers, scarcely think of 
us lying here, with nothing but a piece of cow- 
beef to eat, a river flowing beside us, the damp 
earth beneath, and only the sky for a roof, without 
speaking of the sabre-cuts and bayonet-thrusts our 
friends yonder have in store for us.” 

“ Bah! ” said Klipfel; “ this is life. I would not 
pass my days otherwise. To enjoy life we must 
be well to-day, sick to-morrow; then we appreciate 
the pleasure of the change from pain to ease. As 
for shots and sabre-strokes, with God’s aid, we will 
give as good as we take! ” 

“Yes,” said Zébédé, lighting his pipe, “ when I 
lose my place in the ranks, it will not be for the 
want of striking hard at the Russians! ” 

So we lay wakeful for two or three hours. Léger 
lay stretched out in his great-coat, his feet to the 
fire, asleep, when the sentinel cried: 

“Who goes there?” 

“France! ” 

“ What regiment? ” 

“ Sixth of the Line.” 

9 


130 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


It was Marshal Ney and General Brenier, with 
engineer and artillery officers, and guns. The Mar- 
shal replied “ Sixth of the Line,” because he knew 
beforehand that we were there, and this little fact 
rejoiced us and made us feel very proud. We saw 
him pass on horseback with General Souham and 
five or six other officers of high grade, and although 
it was night we could see them distinctly, for the 
sky was covered with stars and the moon shone 
bright; it was almost as light as day. 

They stopped at a bend of the river and posted 
six guns, and immediately after a pontoon train 
arrived with oak planks and all things necessary 
for throwing two bridges across. Our hussars 
scoured the banks collecting boats, and the artillery- 
men stood at their pieces to sweep down any who 
might try to hinder the work. For a long while 
we watched their labor, while again and again we 
heard the sentry’s “ Qui vive!” It was the regi- 
ments of the Third corps arriving. 

At daybreak I fell asleep, and Klipfel had to 
shake me to arouse me. On every side they were 
beating the reveille; the bridges were finished, and 
we were going to cross the Saale. 

A heavy dew had fallen, and each man hastened 
to wipe his musket, to roll up his great-coat and 
buckle it on his knapsack. One assisted the other, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 131 


and we were soon in the ranks. It might have been 
four o’clock in the morning, and everything seemed 
gray in the mist that arose from the river. Already 
two battalions were crossing on the bridges, the 
officers and colors in the centre. Then the artillery 
and caissons crossed. 

Captain Florentin had just ordered us to renew 
our primings, when General Souham, General 
Chemineau, Colonel Zapfel, and our commandant 
arrived. The battalion began its march. I looked 
forward expecting to see the Russians coming on 
at a gallop, but nothing stirred. 

As each regiment reached the farther bank it 
formed a square with ordered arms. At five o’clock 
the entire division had passed.. The sun dispersed 
the mist, and we saw, about three-fourths of a league 
to our right, an old city with its pointed roofs, 
slated clock-tower, surmounted by a cross, and, far- 
ther away, a castle; it was Weissenfels. 

Between us and the city was a deep valley. Mar- 
shal Ney, who had just come up, wished to recon- 
noitre this before advancing into it. Two com- 
panies of the Twenty-seventh were deployed as 
skirmishers and the squares moved onward in com- 
mon time, with the officers, sappers, and drums in 
the centre, the cannon in the intervals and the cais- 
sons in the rear. 


132 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


We all mistrusted this valley—the more so since 
we had seen, the evening before, a mass of cavalry, 
which could not have retired beyond the great plain 
that lay before us. Notwithstanding our distrust, 
it made us feel very proud and brave to see our- 
selves drawn up in our long ranks—our muskets 
loaded, the colors advanced, the generals in the rear 
full of confidence—to see our masses thus moving 
onward without hurry, but calmly marking the 
step; yes, it was enough to make our hearts beat. 
high with pride and hope! And I said to myself: 
“ Perhaps at sight of us the enemy will fly, which 
will be the best for them and for us.” 

I was in the second rank, behind Zébédé, and 
from time to time I glanced at the other square, 
which was moving on the same line with us, in the 
centre of which I saw the Marshal and his staff, 
all trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on 
ahead. 

The skirmishers had by this time reached the 
ravine, which was bordered with brambles and 
hedges. I had already seen a movement on its far- 
ther side, like the motion of a cornfield in the wind, 
and the thought struck me that the Russians, with 
their lances and sabres, were there, although I could 
searcely believe it. But when our skirmishers 
reached the hedges, the fusillade began, and I saw 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 133 


clearly the glitter of their lances. At the same in- 
stant a flash like lightning gleamed in front of us, 
followed by a fierce report. The Russians had their 
cannon with them; they had opened on us. I know 
not what noise made me turn my head, and there 
I saw an empty space in the ranks to my left. 

At the same time Colonel Zapfel said quietly: 

“ Close up the ranks! ” 

And Captain Florentin repeated: 

** Close up the ranks! ” 

All this was done so quickly that I had no time 
for thought. But fifty paces farther on another 
flash shone out; there was another murmur in the 
ranks—as if a fierce wind was passing—and another 
vacant space, this time to the right. 

And thus, after every shot from the Russians, 
the colonel said, ‘‘ Close up the ranks! ” and I knew 
that each time he spoke there was a breach in the 
living wall! It was no pleasant thing to think of, 
but still we marched on toward the valley. At last 
I did not dare to think at all, when General Che- 
mineau, who had entered our square, cried in a 
terrible voice: 

“ Halt! ” 

I looked forward, and saw a mass of Russians 
coming down upon us. 

“Front rank, kneel! Fix bayonets! — 2 
cried the general. 


134 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


As Zébédé knelt, I was now, so to speak, in the 
front rank. On came the line of horses, each rider 
bending over his saddle-bow, with sabre flashing in 
his hand. Then again the general’s voice was heard 
behind us, calm, tranquil, giving orders as coolly 
as on parade: [ 

“ Attention for the command of fire! Aim! 
Fire!” 

The four squares fired together; it seemed as if 
the skies were falling in the crash. When the smoke 
lifted, we saw the Russians broken and flying; but 
our artillery opened, and the cannon-balls sped 
faster than they. 

“ Charge! ” shouted the general. 

Never in my life did such a wild joy possess me. 
On every side the ery of Vive ?Empereur! shook 
the air, and in my excitement I shouted like the 
others. But we could not pursue them far, and 
soon we were again moving calmly on. We thought 
the fight was ended; but when within two or three 
hundred paces of the ravine, we heard the rush of 
horses, and again the general cried: 

“Halt! Kneel! Fix bayonets! ” 

On came the Russians from the valley like a 
whirlwind; the earth shook beneath their weight; 
we heard no more orders, but each man knew that 
he must fire into the mass, and the file-firing began, 


es 


eee 





OSE UP THE RANKS!” 


**CL 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 135 


rattling like the drums in a grand review. Those 
who have not seen a battle can form but little idea 
of the excitement, the confusion, and yet the order 
of such a moment. <A few of the Russians neared 
us; we saw their forms appear a moment through 
the smoke, and then saw them no more. In a 

few moments more the ringing voice of General : 
Chemineau arose, sounding above the crash and 

rattle: : 

“ Cease firing! ” 

We scarcely dared obey. Each one hastened to 
deliver a final shot; then the smoke slowly lifted, 
and we saw a mass of cavalry ascending the farther 
side of the ravine. 

The squares deployed at once into columns; the 
drums beat the charge; our artillery still continued 
its fire; we rushed on, shouting: 

“Forward! forward! Vive ?Empereur!” 

We descended the ravine, over heaps of horses 
and Russians; some dead, some writhing upon the 
earth, and we ascended the slope toward Weissen- 
fels at a quick step. The Cossacks and chasseurs 
bent forward in their saddles, their cartridge-boxes 
dangling behind them, galloping before us in full 
flight. The battle was won. 

But as we reached the gardens of the city, they 
posted their cannon, which they had brought off 


136 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


with them, behind a sort of orchard, and reopened 
upon us, a ball carrying away both the axe and 
head of the sapper, Merlin. The corporal of sap- 
pers, Thomé, had his arm fractured by a piece of 
the axe, and they were compelled to amputate his 
arm at Weissenfels. Then we started toward them 
on a run, for the sooner we reached them the less 
time they would have for firing. 

We entered the city at three places, marching 
through hedges, gardens, hop-fields, and climbing 
over walls. The marshals and generals followed 
after. Our regiment entered by an avenue bor- 
dered with poplars, which ran along the cemetery, 
and, as we debouched in the public square another 
column came through the main street. 

There we halted, and the Marshal, without tonto 
a moment, despatched the Twenty-seventh to take 
a bridge and cut off the enemy’s retreat. During 
this time the rest of the division arrived, and was 
drawn up in the square. The burgomaster and 
councillors of Weissenfels were already on the steps 
of the town-hall to bid us welcome. 

When we were re-formed, the Marshal-Prince of 
Moskowa passed before the front of our battalion 
and said joyfully: 

“Well done! I am satisfied with you! The 
Emperor will know of your conduct! ” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 137 


He could not help laughing at the way we rushed 
on the guns. General Souham cried: 

“Things go bravely on! ” 

He replied: 

“ Yes, yes; ’tis in the blood! ’tis in the blood.” 

The battalion remained there until the next day. 
We were lodged with the citizens, who were afraid 
of us and gave us all we asked. The Twenty-sev- 
enth returned in the evening and was quartered in 
the old chateau. We were very tired. After smok- 
ing two or three pipes together, chatting about our 
glory, Zébédé, Klipfel and I went together to. the 
shop of a joiner and slept on a heap of shavings, 
and remained there until midnight, when they beat 
the reveille. We rose; the joiner gave us some 
brandy, and we went out. The rain was falling in 
torrents. That night the battalion went to bivouac 
before the village of Clépen, two hours’ march from 
Weissenfels. 

Other detachments came and rejoined us. The 
Emperor had arrived at Weissenfels, and all the 
Third corps were to follow us. We talked only of 
_ this all the day; but the day after, at five in the 
morning, we set off again in the advance. 

Before us rolled a river called the Rippach. In- 
stead of turning aside to take the bridge, we forded 
it where we were. The water reached our waists; 


138 | THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


and I thought, as I pulled my shoes out of the mud, 
“Tf any one had told me this in the days when I 
was afraid of catching a cold in the head at M. 
Goulden’s, and when I changed my stockings twice 
a week, I should never have believed it. Well, 
strange things happen to one in this life.” 

As we passed down the other bank of the river 
in the rushes, we discovered a band of Cossacks ob- 
serving us from the heights to the left. They fol- 
lowed slowly, without daring to attack us, and sd 
we kept on until it was broad day, when suddenly 
a terrific fusillade and the thunder of heavy guns 
made us turn our heads toward Clépen. The com- 
mandant, on horseback, looked over the tops of the 
reeds. 

The sounds of conflict lasted a considerable time, 
and Sergeant Pinto said: 

“ The division is advancing; it is attacked.” 

The Cossacks gazed, too, toward the fight, and 
at the end of an hour disappeared. Then we saw 
the division advancing in column in the plain to the 
right, driving before them the masses of Russian 
eavalry. 

“ Forward! ” cried the commandant. 

We ran, without knowing why, along the river 
bank, until we reached an old bridge where the 
Rippach and Gruna met. Here we were to inter- | 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 139 


cept the enemy: but the Cossacks had discovered 
our design, and their whole army fell back behind 
the Gruna, which they forded, and, the division 
rejoining us, we learned that Marshal Bessiéres had 
been killed by a cannon-ball. 

‘We left the bridge to bivouac before the village 
of Gorschen. The rumor that a great battle was 
approaching ran through the ranks, and they said 
that all that had passed was only a trial to see how 
the recruits would act under fire. One may im- 
agine the reflections of a thoughtful man under such 
circumstances, among such hare-brained fellows as 
Furst, Zébédé, and Klipfel, who seemed to rejoice 
at the prospect, as if it could bring them aught else 
than bullet-wounds or sabre-cuts. All night long 
I thought of Catharine, and prayed God to preserve 
my life and my hands, which are so needful for 
poor people to gain their bread. 


XTit 


We lighted our fires on the hill before Gross 
Gorschen and a detachment descended to the vil- 
lage and brought back five or six old cows to make 
soup of. But we were so worn out that many would 
rather sleep than eat. Other regiments arrived with 
cannon and munitions. About eleven o’clock there 
were from ten to twelve thousand men there and 
two thousand and more in the village—all Souham’s 
division. The general and his ordnance officers were 
quartered in an old mill to the left, near a stream 
called Floss-Graben. The line of sentries were 
stretched along the base of the hill a musket-shot off. 

At length I fell asleep, but I awoke every hour, 
and behind us, toward the road leading from the 
old bridge of Poserna to Lutzen and Leipzig, I 
heard the rolling of wagons, of artillery and caissons, 
rising and falling through the silence. 

Sergeant Pinto did not sleep; he sat smoking 
his pipe and drying his feet at the fire. Every time 
one of us moved, he would try to talk and say: 


“ Well, conscript?” 
140 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT I41 


But they pretended not to hear him, and turned 
over, gaping, to sleep again. 

The clock of Gross-Gorschen was striking six 
when I awoke. I was sore and weary yet. Never- 
theless, I sat up and tried to warm myself, for I 
was very cold. The fires were smoking, and almost 
extinguished. Nothing of them remained but the 
ashes and a few embers. The sergeant, erect, was 
gazing over the vast plain where the sun shot a 
few long lines of gold, and, seeing me awake, put 
a coal in his pipe and said: 

“ Well, fusilier Bertha, we are now in the rear- 
guard.” 

I did not know what he meant. 

“That astonishes you,” he continued; “ but we 
have not stirred, while the army has made a half- 
wheel. Yesterday it was before us in the Rippach; 
now it is behind us, near Lutzen; and, instead of 
being in the front we are in rear; so that now,” 
said he, closing an eye and drawing two long puffs 
of his pipe, “ we are the last, instead of the fore- 
most.” 

“ And what do we gain by it?” I asked. 

“We gain the honor of first reaching Leipzig, 
and falling on the Prussians,” he replied. “ You 
will understand this by and by, conscript.” 

I stood up, and looked around. I saw before us 


142 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


a wide, marshy plain, traversed by the Gruna-Bach 
and the Floss-Graben. A few hills arose along these 
streams, and beyond ran a large river, which the 
sergeant told me was the Elster. The morning mist 
hung over all. 

Turning around, I saw behind us in the valley 
the point of the clock-tower of Gross-Gorschen, and 
farther on, to the right and left, five or six little 
villages built in the hollows between the hills, for 
it is a country of hills, and the villages of Kaya, 
Eisdorf, Starsiedel, Rahna, Klein-Gorschen and 
Gross-Gorschen, which I knew before, are between 
them, on the borders of little lakes, where poplars, 
willows and aspens grow. Gross-Gorschen, where 
we bivouacked, was farthest advanced in the plain, 
toward the Elster ; Kaya was farthest off, and be- 
hind it passed the high-road from Lutzen to Leipzig. 
We saw no fires on the hills save those of our di- 
vision; but the entire corps occupied the villages 
scattered in our rear, and head-quarters were at 
Kaya. 

At seven o’clock the drums and the trumpets of 
the artillery sounded the reveille. We went down 
to the village, some to look for wood, others for 
straw or hay. Ammunition-wagons came up, and 
bread and cartridges were distributed. There we 


were to remain, to let the army march by upon Leip- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 143 


zig; this was why Sergeant Pinto said we would 
be in the rear-guard. 

Two cantinieres arrived from the village; and, 
as I had yet a few crowns remaining, I offered Klip- 
fel and Zébédé a glass of brandy each, to counteract 
the effects of the fogs of the night. I also presumed 
to offer one to Sergeant Pinto, who accepted it, say- 
ing that bread and brandy warmed the heart. 

We felt quite happy, and no one suspected the 
horrors the day was to bring forth. We thought 
the Russians and the Prussians were seeking us be- 
hind the Gruna-Bach; but they knew well where 
we were. And suddenly, about ten o’clock, General 
Souham, mounted, arrived with his officers. I was 
sentry near the stacks of arms, and I think I can now 
see him, as he rode to the top of the hill, with his 
gray hair and white-bordered hat; and as he took 
out his field-glass, and, after an earnest gaze, re- 
turned quickly, and ordered the drums to beat the 
recall. The sentries at once fell into the ranks, and 
Zébédé, who had the eyes of a falcon, said: 

“TI see yonder, near the Elster, masses of men 
forming and advancing in good order, and others 
coming from the marshes by the three bridges. We 
are lost if all those fall upon our rear! ” 

“A battle is beginning,” said Sergeant Pinto, 
shading his eyes with his hands, “ or I know nothing - 


144. THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


of war. Those beggarly Prussians and Russians 
want to take us on the flank with their whole force, 
as we defile on Leipzig, so as to cut us in two. It 
is well thought of on their part. We are always 
teaching them the art of war.” 

“ But what will we do?” asked Klipfel. 

“Our part is simple,” answered the sergeant. 
“ We are here twelve to fifteen thousand men, with 
old Souham, who never gave an enemy an inch. 
We will stand here like a wall, one to six or seven, 
until the Emperor is informed how matters stand, 
and sends us aid. There go the staff officers now.” 

It was true; five or six officers were galloping 
over the plain of Lutzen toward Leipzig. They 
sped like the wind, and I prayed to God to have 
them reach the Emperor in time to send the whole 
army to our assistance; for there was something 
horrible in the certainty that we were about to per- 
ish, and I would not wish my greatest enemy in such 
a position as ours was then. 

Sergeant Pinto continued : 

“You will have a chance now, conscripts; and 
if any of you come out alive, they will have some- 
thing to boast of. Look at those blue lines ad- 
vancing, with their muskets on their shoulders, 
along Floss-Graben. Each of those lines is a regi- 
ment. There are thirty of them. That makes sixty 


‘THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 145 


thousand Prussians, without counting those lines of 
horsemen, each of which is a squadron. Those ad- 
vancing to their left, near Rippach, glittering in the 
sun, are the dragoons and cuirassiers of the Russian 
Imperial Guard. There are eighteen or twenty 
thousand of them, and I first saw them at Auster- 
litz, where we fixed them finely. Those masses of 
lances in the rear are Cossacks. We will have a 
hundred thousand men on our hands in an hour. 
This is a fight to win the cross in, and if one does 
not get it now he can never hope to do so! ” 

“Do you think so, sergeant? ” said Zébédé, whose 
ideas were never very clear, and who already im- 
agined he held the cross in his fingers, while his 
eyes glittered with excitement. 

“Tt will be hand to hand,” replied the sergeant; 
“and suppose that in the mélée, you see a colonel 
or a flag near you, spring on him or it; never mind 
sabres or bayonets; seize them, and then your name 
goes on the list.” 

As he spoke, I remembered that the Mayor of 
Phalsbourg had received the cross for having gone 
to meet the Empress Marie Louise in carriages gar- 
landed with flowers, singing old songs, and I 
thought his method much preferable to that of Ser- 
geant Pinto. 

But I had not time to think more, for the drums 


Io 


146 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


beat on all sides, and each one ran to where the arms 
of his company were stacked and seized his musket. 
Our officers formed us, great guns came at a gallop 
from the village, and were posted on the brow of 
the hill a little to the rear, so that the slope served 
them as a species of redoubt. Farther away, in the 
villages of Rahna, of Kaya, and of Klein-Gorschen, 
all was motion, but we were the first the Prussians 
would fall upon. 

The enemy halted about twice a cannon-shot off, 
and the cavalry swarmed by hundreds up the hill 
to reconnoitre us. I was in utter despair as I gazed 
on their immense masses swarming on both sides of 
the river, the advanced lines of which were already 
beginning to form in columns, and I said to myself, 
“‘ This time, Joseph, all is over, all is lost; there is 
no help for it; all you can do is to revenge yourself, 
defend yourself, to fight pitilessly, and die.” 

While these thoughts were passing through my 
head, General Chemineau galloped along our front, 
erying: 

“Form square.” 

The officers on the right, on the left, in advance, 
in the rear, took up the word and it passed from 
right to left; four squares of four battalions each 
were formed. I found myself in the third, on one 
of the interior sides, a circumstance which in some 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 147 


degree reassured me; for I thought that the Prus- 
sians, who were advancing in three columns, would 
first attack those directly opposite them. But 
scarcely had the thought struck me when a hail of 
cannon-shot from the guns which the Prussians had 
massed on a hill to the left, swept through us just 
as at Weissenfels; and that was not all. They had 
thirty pieces of artillery playing upon us. One can 
imagine from this what gaps they made. The balls 
shrieked sometimes over our heads, sometimes 
through the ranks, and then again struck the earth, 
which they scattered over us. 

Our heavy guns replied to their fire with a vigor 
which kept us from hearing one half the hissing and 
roaring of theirs, but could not silence it, and the 
horrible ery of ‘‘ Close up the ranks! Close up 
the ranks! ” was ever sounding in our ears. 

We were enveloped in smoke without having 
fired a shot, and I said to myself, “if we stay here 
another quarter of an hour we shall all be massacred 
without having a chance to defend ourselves,” which 
seemed to me fearful, when the head of the Prus- 
sian columns appeared between the hills, moving 
forward with a deep, hoarse murmur, like the noise 
of an inundation. Then the three first sides of our 
square, the second and the third obliquing to the 
right and left fired. God only knows how many 


148 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


Prussians fell. But instead of stopping they rushed 
on, shouting like wolves, “ Vaterland! Vater- 
land!” and we fired again into their very bosoms. 

Then began the work of death in earnest. Bay- 
onet-thrust, sabre-stroke, blows from the butt-end 
of our pieces, crashed on all sides. They tried to 
crush us by mere weight of numbers, and came on 
like furious bulls. A battalion rushed upon us, 
thrusting with their bayonets; we returned their 
blows without leaving the ranks, and they were 
swept away almost to a man by two cannon which 
were in position fifty paces in our rear. 

They were the last who tried to break our 
squares. They turned and fled down the hill-side, 
and we were loading our guns to kill every man 
of them, when their pieces again opened fire, and 
we heard a great noise on our right. It was their 
cavalry charging under cover of their fire. I could 
not see the fight, for it was at the other end of the 
division, but their heavy guns swept us off by dozens 
as we stood inactive. General Chemineau had his 
thigh broken; we could not hold out much longer 
when the order was given to retreat, which we did 
with a pleasure easily understood! 

We retired to Gross-Gorschen, pursued by the 
Prussians, both sides maintaining a constant fire. 
The two thousand men in the village checked the 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 149 


enemy while we ascended the opposite slope to gain 
Klein-Gorschen. But the Prussian cavalry came 
on once more to cut off our retreat and keep us un- 
der the fire of their artillery. Then my blood boiled 
with anger, and I heard Zébédé ery, “ Let us fight 
our way to the top rather than remain here! ” 

To do this was fearfully dangerous, for their regi- 
ments of hussars and chasseurs advanced in good 
order to charge. Still we kept retreating, when a 
voice on the top of the ridge cried: “ Halt!” and 
at the same moment the hussars, who were already 
rushing down upon us, received a terrific discharge 
of case and grape-shot, which swept them down by 
hundreds. It was Girard’s division, who had come 
to our assistance from Klein-Gorschen and had 
placed sixteen pieces in position to open upon them. 
The hussars fled faster than they came, and the 
six squares of Girard’s division united with ours at 
Klein-Gorschen, to check the Prussian infantry, 
which still continued to advance, the three first col- 
umns in front and three others, equally strong, 
supporting them. 

We had lost Gross-Gorschen, but now, between 
Klein-Gorschen and Rahna the battle raged more 
fiercely than ever. 

T thought now of nothing but vengeance. I was 
wild with excitement and wrath against those who 


150 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


sought to kill me. I felt a sort of hatred against 
those Prussians whose shouts and insolent manner 
disgusted me. I was, nevertheless, very glad to see 
Zébédé near me yet, and as we stood awaiting new 
attacks, with our arms resting on the ground, I 
pressed his hand. 

“We have escaped narrowly enough,” said he. 
“ God grant the Emperor may soon arrive, and with 
cannon, for they are twenty times stronger than 
we.” 

He no longer spoke of winning the cross. 

I looked around to see if the sergeant was with 
us yet, and saw him calmly wiping his bayonet; 
not a feature showed any trace of excitement— 
that encouraged me. I would have wished to know 
if Klipfel and Furst were unhurt, but the command, 
“ Carry arms! ” made me think of myself. 

The three first columns of the enemy had halted 
on the hill of Gross-Gorschen to await their sup- 
ports. The village in the valley between us was 
on fire, the flames bursting from the thatched roofs 
and the smoke rising to the sky, and to the left 
across the ploughed field we saw a long line of can- 
non coming down to open upon us. 

It might have been mid-day when the six col- 
umns began their march and deployed masses of 
hussars and cavalry on both sides of Gross-Gorschen. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 15t 


Our artillery, placed behind the squares on the top 
of the ridge, opened a terrible fire on the Prussian 
gunners, who replied all along their line. 

Our drums began to beat in the squares to give 
warning that the enemy were approaching, but their 
rattle was like the buzz of a fly in the storm, while 
in the valley the Prussians shouted all together, 
“ Vaterland! Vaterland!” 

Their fire by battalion, as they climbed the hill, 
enveloped us in smoke—as the wind blew toward 
us—and hindered us from seeing them. Neverthe- 
less, we began our file-firing. We heard and saw 
nothing but the noise and smoke of battle for the 
next quarter of an hour, when suddenly the Prus- 
sian hussars were in our square. I know not how 
it happened, but there they were on their little 
horses, sabring us without mercy. We fought with 
our bayonets; we shouted; they slashed, and fired 
their pistols. The carnage was horrible. Zébédé, 
Sergeant Pinto, and some twenty of the company 
held together. I shall see all my life long the pale- 
faced, long-mustached hussars, the straps of their 
shakos tight under their jaws, whose horses reared 
and neighed as they dashed over the heaps of dead 
and wounded. I remember the cries, French and 
German in a horrid mixture, that arose; how they 
called us “ Schweinpelz,” and how old Pinto never 


152. THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT: 


ceased to cry, “Strike bravely, my Bis ; strike 
bravely! ” 

I never knew how we escaped; we ran at random 
through the smoke, and dashed through the midst 
of sabres and flying bullets. I only remember that 
Zébédé every moment cried out to me, ‘ Come on! 
come on!” and that at last we found ourselves on 
a hill-side behind a square which yet held firm, with 
Sergeant Pinto and seven or eight others of the 
company. 

We were covered with blood, and looked like 
butchers. 

“ Load! ” cried the sergeant. 

Then I saw blood and hair on my bayonet, and 
I knew that in my fury I must have given some 
terrible blows. In amoment old Pinto said, “* The 
regiment is totally routed; the beggarly Prussians 
have sabred half of it; we shall find the remainder 
by and by. Now,” he cried, “ we must keep the 
enemy out of the village. By file, left! March! ” 

We descended a little stairway which led to one 
of the gardens of Klein-Gorschen, and entering a 
house, the sergeant barricaded the door leading to 
the fields with a heavy kitchen table; then he 
showed us the door opening on the street, telling us, 
“ Here is our way of retreat.”” This done, we went 
to the floor above, and found a pretty large room, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 153 


with two windows looking out upon the village, 
and two upon the hill, which was still covered with 
smoke and resounding with the crash of musketry 
and artillery. At one end in an alcove was a broken 
bedstead, and near it a cradle. The people of the 
house had no doubt fled at the beginning of the 
battle, but a dog, with ears erect and flashing eyes, 
glared at us from beneath the curtains. All this 
comes back to me like a dream. 

The sergeant opened the window and fired at 
two or three Prussian hussars who were already 
advancing down the street. Zébédé and the others 
standing behind him stood ready. I looked toward 
the hill to see if the squares had yet remained un- 
broken, and I saw them retreating in good order, 
firing as they went from all four sides on the masses 
of cavalry which surrounded them completely. 
Through the smoke I could perceive the colonel 
on horseback, sabre in hand, and by him the colors, 
so torn by shot that they were mere rags hanging 
on the staff. 

Beyond, on the left, a column of the enemy were 
debouching from the road and marching on Klein- 
Gorschen. This column evidently designed cutting 
off our retreat on the village, but hundreds of dis- 
banded soldiers like us had arrived, and were pour- 
ing in from all sides, some turning ever and anon 


154 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


to fire, others wounded, trying to crawl to some 
place of shelter. They took possession of the houses, 
and, as the column approached, musketry rattled 
upon them from all the windows. This checked 
the enemy, and at the same moment the divisions 
of Brenier and Marchand, which the Prince of Mos- 
kowa had despatched to our assistance, began to de- 
ploy to the right. We heard afterward that Mar- 
shal Ney had followed the Emperor in the direction 
of Leipzig and came back on hearing the sound of 
cannon. 

The Prussians halted, and the firing ceased on 
both sides. Our squares and columns began to 
climb the hills again, opposite Starsiedel, and the 
defenders of the village rushed: from the houses 
to join their regiments. Ours had become mingled 
with two or three others; and, when the reinforc- 
ing divisions halted before Kaya, we could scarcely 
find our places. The roll was called, and of our 
company but forty-two men remained; Furst and 
Léger were dead, but Zébédé, Klipfel, and I were 
unhurt. 

But, unluckily, the battle was not yet over, for 
the Prussians, flushed with victory, were already 
making their dispositions to attack us at Kaya; re- 
inforcements were hurrying to them, and it seemed 
that, for so great a general, the Emperor had made 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 155 


a gross blunder in stretching his lines to Leipzig, 
and leaving us to be overpowered by an army of 
over a hundred thousand men. 

As we were re-forming behind Brenier’s division, 
eighteen thousand veterans of the Prussian guard 
charged up the hill, carrying the shakos of our killed 
on their bayonets in token of victory. Once more 
the fight began, the mass of Russian cavalry, which 
we had seen glittering in the sun in the morning, 
came down on our flank,—on the left, between 
Klein-Gorschen and Starsiedel,— but the Sixth 
corps had arrived in time to cover it, and stood the 
shock like a castle wall. Once more shouts, groans, 
the clashing of sabre against bayonet, the crash of 
musketry and thunder of cannon shook the sky, 
while the plain was hidden in a cloud of smoke, 
through which we could see the glitter of helmets, 
cuirasses, and thousands of lances. 

We were retiring, when something passed along 
our front like a flash of lightning. It was Marshal 
Ney surrounded by his staff. I never saw such 
a countenance; his eyes sparkled and his lips trem- 
bled with rage. In a second’s time he had dashed 
along the lines, and drew up in front of our col- 
-umns. The retreat stopped at once; he called us 
on, and, as if led by a kind of fascination, we dashed 
on to meet the Prussians, cheering like madmen as 


156 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


we went. But the Prussian line stood firm; they 
fought hard to keep the victory they had won, and 
besides were constantly receiving reinforcements, 
while we were worn out with five hours’ fighting. 

Our battalion was now in the second line, and 
the enemy’s shot passed over our heads; but a hor- 
rible din made my flesh creep; it was the rattling 
of the grape-shot among the bayonets. 

In the midst of shouts, orders, and the whistling 
of bullets, we again began to fall back over heaps 
of dead; our first division re-entered Klein-Gor- 
schen, and once more the fight was hand to hand. 
In the main street of the village nothing was seen 
or heard but shots and blows, and generals, mount- 
ed, fought sword in hand Itke private soldiers. 

This lasted some minutes; we in the ranks, said, 
* all is well, all is well, now we are advancing; ” but 
again they were reinforced, and we were obliged to 
continue our retreat, and unhappily in such haste 
that many did not stop until they reached Kaya. 
This village was on the ridge and the last before 
reaching Lutzen. It isa long, narrow lane of houses, 
separated from each other by little gardens, stables 
and bee-hives. If the enemy forced us to Kaya, our 
army was cut in two. I recalled the words of M. 
Goulden—“ If unluckily the allies get the best of 
us, they will revenge themselves on us in our own 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 157 


country for all we have been doing to them the 
last ten years.” The battle seemed irretrievably 
lost, for Marshal Ney himself, in the centre of a 
square, was retreating; and many soldiers, to get 
away from the mélée, were carrying off wounded 
officers on their muskets. Everything looked 
gloomy, indeed. 

I entered Kaya on the right of the village, leap- 
ing over hedges, and creeping under the fences 
which separated the gardens, and was turning the 
corner of a street, when I saw some fifty officers 
on the brow of a hill before me, and behind them 
masses of artillery galloping at full speed along the © 
Leipzig road. Then I saw the Emperor himself, a 
little in advance of the others; he was seated, 
as if in an arm-chair, on his white horse, and I 
could see him well, beneath the clear sky, motion- 
less and looking at the battle through his field- 
glass. 

My heart beat gladly; I cried “ Vive ?Empe- 
reur!” with all my strength, and rushed along the 
main street of Kaya. I was one of the first to 
enter, and I saw the inhabitants of the village, men, 
women, and children, hastening to the cellars for 
protection. 

Many to whom I have related the foregoing have 
sneered at me for running so fast; but I can only 


158 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


reply that when Michel Ney retreated, it was high 
time for Joseph Bertha to do so too. 

Klipfel, Zébédé, Sergeant Pinto, and the others 
of the company had not yet arrived when masses 
of black smoke arose above the roofs; shattered 
tiles fell into the streets, and shot buried themselves 
in the walls, or crashed through the beams with a 
horrible noise. 

At the same time, our soldiers rushed in through 
the lanes, over the hedges and fences, turning from 
time to time to fire on the enemy. Men of all 
arms were mingled, some without shakos or knap- 
sacks, their clothes torn and covered with blood; 
but they retreated furiously, and were nearly all 
mere children, boys of fifteen or twenty; but cour- 
age is inborn in the French people. 

The Prussians—led by old officers who shouted 
“ Forwarts! Forwdarts!”—followed like packs. of 
wolves, but we turned and opened fire from the 
hedges, and fences, and houses. How many of them 
bit the dust I know‘not, but others always supplied 
the places of those who fell. Hundreds of balls 
whistled by our ears and flattened themselves on 
the stone walls; the plaster was broken from the 
walls, and the thatch hung from the rafters, and 
as I turned for the twentieth time to fire, my musket 
dropped from my hand; I stooped to lift it, but 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 159 


IT fell too: I had received a shot in the left shoulder 
and the blood ran like warm water down my breast. 
I tried to rise, but all that I could do was to seat 
myself against the wall while the blood continued 
to run down even to my thighs, and I shuddered 
at the thought that I was to die there. 

Still the fight went on. 

. Fearful that another bullet might reach me, I 
crawled to the corner of a house, and fell into a 
little trench which brought water from the street 
to the garden. My left arm was heavy as lead; 
my head swam; [I still heard the firing, but it 
seemed a dream, and I closed my eyes. 

When I again opened them, night was coming 
on, and the Prussians filled the village. In the gar- 
den, before me, was an old general, with white hair, 
on a tall brown horse. He shouted in a trumpet- 
like voice to bring on the cannon, and officers hur- 
ried away with his orders. Near him, standing on 
a little wall, two surgeons were bandaging his arm. 
Behind, on the other side, was a little Russian offi- 
cer, whose plume of green feathers almost covered 
his hat. I saw all this at a glance—the old man 
with his large nose and broad forehead, his quick 
glancing eyes, and bold air; the others around him; 
the surgeon, a little bald man with spectacles, and 
five or six hundred paces away, between two houses, 
our soldiers re-forming. 


160 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


The firing had ceased, but between Klein-Gor- 
schen and Kaya terrible cries arose, and I could 
hear the heavy rumbling of artillery, neighing of 
horses, cries and shouts of drivers, and cracking of 
whips. Without knowing why, I dragged myself 
to the wall, and scarcely had I done so, when two 
sixteen pounders, each drawn by six horses, turned 
the corner of the street. The artillery-men beat the 
horses with all their strength, and the wheels rolled 
over the heaps of dead and wounded as if they were 
going over straw. Now I knew whence came the 
eries I had heard, and my hair stood on end with 
horror. 

“ Here! ” cried the old man in German; “ aim 
yonder, between those two houses near the foun- 


“ 


tain.” 

The two guns were turned at once; the old man, 
his left arm in a sling, cantered up the street, and 
I heard him say, in short, quick tones, to the young 
officer as he passed where I lay: 

“ Tell the Emperor Alexander that I am at Kaya. 
The battle is won if I am reinforced. Let them not 
discuss the matter, but send help at once. Napoleon 
is coming, and in half an hour we will have him 
upon us with his Guard. I will stand, let it cost 
what it may. But in God’s name do not lose a 
minute, and the victory is ours! ” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 161 


The young man set off at a gallop, and at the 
same moment a voice near me whispered: 

“That old wretch is Bliicher. Ah, scoundrel! 
if I only had my gun! ” 

Turning my head, I saw an old sergeant, with- 
ered and thin, with long wrinkles in his cheeks, 
sitting against the door of the house, supporting 
himself with his hands on the ground, as with a 
pair of crutches, for a ball had passed through him 
from side to side. His yellow eyes followed the 
Prussian general; his hooked nose seemed to droop 
like the beak of an eagle over his thick mustache, 
and his look was fierce and proud. 

“Tf I had my musket,” he repeated, “I would 
show you whether the battle is won.” 

We were the only two living beings among heaps 
of dead. 

I thought that perhaps I should be buried in the 
morning with the others, in the garden opposite us, 
and that I would never again see Catharine; the 
tears ran down my cheeks, and I could not help 
murmuring: 

* Now all is indeed ended! ” 

The sergeant gazed at me and, seeing that I was 
yet so young, said kindly: 

“‘ What is the matter with you, conscript?” 

“A ball in the shoulder, mon sergeant.” 

II 


162 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“In the shoulder! That is better than one 
through the body. You will get over it.” 

And after a moment’s thought he continued: 

“Fear nothing. You will see home again! ” 

I thought that he pitied my youth and wished 
to console me; but my chest seemed crushed, and 
I could not hope. 

The sergeant said no more, only from time to 
time he raised his head to see if our columns were 
coming. He swore between his teeth and ended 
by falling at length upon the ground, saying: _ 

“My business is done! But the villain has paid 
for it!” 

He gazed at the hedge opposite, where a Prus- 
sian grenadier was stretched, cold and stiff, the old 
sergeant’s bayonet yet in his body. 

It might then have been six in the evening. The 
enemy filled all the houses, gardens, orchards, the 
main streets and the alleys. I was cold and had 
dropped my head forward upon my knees, when 
the roll of artillery called me again to my senses. 
The two pieces in the garden and many others 
posted behind them threw their broad flashes 
through the darkness, while Russians and Prussians 
crowded through the street. But all this was as 
nothing in comparison to the fire of the French, 
from the hill opposite the village, while the constant 





BEFORE HIM, 


AY 


WwW 


G GAVE 


EVERYTHIN 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 163 


glare showed the Young Guard coming on at the 
double-quick, generals and colonels on horseback in 
the midst of the bayonets, waving their swords and 
cheering them on, while the twenty-four guns the 
Emperor had sent to support the movement thun- 
dered behind. The old wall against which I leaned 
shook to its foundations. In the street the balls 
mowed down the enemy like grass before the scythe. 
It was their turn to close up the ranks. 

I also heard the enemy’s artillery replying be- 
hind us, and I thought, “ Heaven grant that the 
French win the day; then their suffering wounded 
will be taken care of, instead of these Prussians and 
Cossacks first looking after their own, and leaving 
us all to perish.” 

I paid no further attention to the sergeant, I only 
looked at the Prussian gunners loading their guns, 
aiming and firing them, cursing them all the time 
from the bottom of my heart, but all the time lis- 
tening to the inspiring shouts of “ Vive ?Empe- 
reur!” ringing out in the momentary silence be- 
tween the reports of the guns. 

In about twenty minutes the Russians and Prus- 
sians were forced to fall back; going in crowds by 
the narrow passage where-we were; the shouts of 
“Vive VEmpereur!” grew nearer and nearer. 
The cannoneers at the pieces before me loaded and 


164 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


fired at their utmost speed, when three or four 
grape-shots fell among them and broke the wheel 
of one of their guns, besides killing two and wound- 
ing another of their men. I felt a hand seize my 
arm. It was the old sergeant. His eyes were glaz- 
ing in death, but he laughed scornfully and say- 
agely. The roof of our shelter fell in; the walls 
bent, but we cared not, we only saw the defeat of 
the enemy and heard the shouts of our men nearer 
and nearer, when the old sergeant gasped in my ear: 

“ Here he is! ” 

He rose to his knees, supporting himself with 
one hand, while with the other he waved his hat 
in the air, and cried in a ringing voice: 

“ Vive VEmpereur !” 

Then he fell on his face to the earth and moved 
no more. 

And I, raising myself too from the ground, saw 
Napoleon, riding calmly through the hail of shot— 
his hat pulled down over his large head—his gray 
great-coat open, a broad red ribbon crossing his 
white vest—there he rode, calm and imperturbable, 
his face lit up with the reflection from the bayonets. 
None stood their ground before him; the Prussian 
artillerymen abandoned their pieces and sprang over 
the garden-hedge, despite the cries of their officers 
who sought to keep them back. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 165 


All this I saw—it seems graved with fire on my 
memory, but from that moment I can remember no 
more of the battle, for in that certainty of victory I 
lost consciousness and fell like a corpse in the midst 


of corpses. 


XIV 


Wuen sense returned it was night and all was 
silent around. Clouds were scudding across the 
sky, and the moon shone down upon the abandoned 
village, the broken guns, and the pale upturned 
faces of the dead, as calmly as for ages she had 
looked on the flowing water, the waving grass, and 
the rustling leaves which fall in autumn. Men are 
but insects in the midst of creation ; lives but drops 
in the ocean of eternity, and none so truly feel their 
insignificance as the dying. 

T could not move from where I lay in the intensest 
pain. My right arm alone could I stir, and raising 
myself with difficulty upon my elbow, I saw the 
dead heaped along the street, their white faces shin- 
ing like snow in the moonlight. The mouths and 
eyes of some were wide open, others lay on their 
faces, their knapsacks and cartridge-boxes on their 
backs and their hands grasping their muskets. The 
sight thrilled me with horror, and my teeth chat- 
tered. 


I would have cried for help, but my voice was 
166 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 167 


no louder than that of a sobbing child. But my 
feeble cry awoke others, and groans and shrieks arose 
on all sides. The wounded thought succor was 
coming, and all who could cried piteously. These 
cries lasted some time ; then all was silent, and I 
only heard a horse neigh painfully on the other side 
of the hedge. The poor animal tried to rise, and I 
saw its head and long neck appear; then it fell 
again to the earth. 

The effort I made reopened my wound, and again 
I felt the blood running down my arm. I closed 
my eyes to die, and the scenes of my early child- 
hood, of my native village, the face of my poor 
mother as she sang me to sleep, my little room, with 
its aleove, our old dog Pommer with whom I used 
to play and roll over and over on the ground ; my 
father as he came home gayly in the evening, 
his axe on his shoulder, and took me up in his 
strong arms to embrace me—all rose dreamily be- 
fore me. 

How little those parents thought that they were 
rearing their boy to die miserably far from friends, 
and home, and succor! How great would have 
been their desolation—what maledictions would 
they have poured on those who reduced him to such 
astate! Ah! if they were but there !—if I could 
have asked their forgiveness for all the pain I had 


168 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


given them! As these thoughts rushed over me 
the tears rolled down my cheeks ; my heart heaved: 
I sobbed like a child. 

Then Catharine, Aunt Grédel, and Monsieur 
Goulden passed before me. I saw their grief and 
fear when the news of the battle came. Aunt Gré- 
del running to the post-office every day to learn 
something of me, and Catharine prayerfully await- 
ing her return, while Monsieur Goulden read in the 
gazette how the Third corps suffered more heavily 
than the others, as he paced the room with drooping 
head and at last sat dreamily at his work-bench. 
My heart was with them ; it followed Aunt Grédel 
to the post-office, and returned with her all sadly to 
the village, and there it saw Catharine in her despair- 
ing grief. 

Then the postman Roedig seemed to arrive at 
Quatre-Vents. He opened his leathern sack, and 
handed a large paper to Aunt Grédel, while Cath- 
arine stood pale as death beside her. It was the 
official notice of my death: I heard Catharine’s 
heart-rending cries as she fell swooning to the 
ground, and Aunt Grédel’s maledictions, as, with 
her gray hair streaming about her head, she cried 
that justice was no longer to be found—that it were 
better that we had never been born, since even God 
seemed to have abandoned us. Good Father Gould- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 169 


en came to console them, but could only sob too: all 
wept together in their desolation, crying : 

“ Joseph ! Poor, poor Joseph !” 

My heart seemed bursting. 

_ The thought came that thirty or forty thousand 
families in France, in Russia, in Germany, were 
soon to receive the same news—news yet more ter- 
rible, for many of the wretches stretched on the 
battle-field had father and mother, and this was hor- 
rible to think of—it seemed as if a wail from all hu- 
man kind were rising from earth to heaven. 

Then I remembered those poor women of Phals- 
bourg, praying in the church when we heard of the 
retreat from Russia, and I understood how their 
hearts were torn. I thought that Catharine would 
soon go there, and year after year she would pray— 
thinking of me. Yes—for I knew we had loved 
each other from childhood, and that she could never 
forget me, and tear after tear coursed down my 
cheeks. This confidence soothed me in my grief— 
the certainty that she would preserve her love for 
me until age whitened her hair ; that I should be 
ever before her eyes, and that she would never 
marry another. 

Toward morning a shower began to fall, and the 
monotonous dropping on the roofs alone broke the 
silence. I thought of the good God, whose power 


170 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


and mercy are limitless, and I hoped that He would 
pardon my sins in consideration of my sufferings. 

The rain filled the little trench in which I had 
been lying. From time to time a wall fell in the 
village, and the cattle, scared away by the battle, 
began to resume confidence and return. I heard 
a goat bleat in a neighboring stable. A great shep- 
herd’s dog wandered fearfully among the heaps of 
dead. The horse, seeing him, neighed in terror— 
he took him for a wolf—and the dog fled. 

I remember all these details, for, when we are 
dying, we see everything, we hear everything, for 
we know that we are seeing and hearing our last. 

But how my whole frame thrilled with joy when, 
at the corner of the street, I thought I heard the 
sound of voices! How eagerly I listened! And 
I raised myself upon my elbow, and called for help. 
It was yet night ; but the first gray streak of day 
was becoming visible in the east, and afar off, 
through the falling rain, I saw a light in the fields, 
now coming onward, now stopping. I saw dark 
forms bending around it. They were only confused 
shadows. But others besides me saw the light; for 
on all sides arose groans and plaintive cries, from 
voices so feeble that they seemed like those of chil- 
dren calling their mothers. 

What is this life to which we attach so great a 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 171 


price?. This miserable existence, so full of pain and 
suffering? Why do we so cling to it, and fear more 
to lose it than aught else in the world? What is it 
that is to come hereafter that makes us shudder at 
the mere thought of death? Who knows? For 
ages and ages all have thought and thought on the 
great question, but none have yet solved it. I, in 
my eagerness to live, gazed on that light as the 
drowning man looks to the shore. I could not take 
my eyes from it, and my heart thrilled with hope. 
I tried again to shout, but my voice died on my lips. 
The pattering of the rain on the ruined dwellings, 
and on the trees, and on the ground, drowned all 
other sounds, and, although I kept repeating, “They 
hear us! They are coming!” and although the 
lantern seemed to grow larger and larger, after wan- 
dering for some time over the field, it slowly disap- 
peared behind a little hill. 
I fell once more senseless to the ground. 


XV 


Wuen I returned to myself, I looked around. I 
was in a long hall, with posts all around. Some one 
gave me wine and water to drink, and it was most 
grateful. Iwas in a bed, and beside me was an old 
gray-mustached soldier, who, when he saw my eyes 
open, lifted up my head and held a cup to my lips. 

“ Well,” said he cheerfully, “well! we are 
better.” 

I could not help smiling as I thought that I was 
yet among the living. My chest and arm were stiff 
with bandages ; I felt as if a hot iron were burning 
me there ; but no matter, I lived ! 

I gazed at the heavy rafters crossing the space 
above me ; at the tiles of the roof, through which 
the daylight entered in more than one spot; I turned 
and looked to the other side, and saw that I was in 
one of those vast sheds used by the brewers of the 
country as a shelter for their casks and wagons. All 
around, on mattresses and heaps of straw, numbers 
of wounded lay ranged ; and in the middle, on a 


large kitchen-table, a surgeon-major and his two 
172 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 173 


aids, their shirt-sleeves rolled up, were amputating 
the leg of a soldier, who was shrieking in agony. Be- 
hind them was a mass of legs and arms. I turned 
away sick and trembling. 

_ Five or six soldiers were walking about, giving 
bread and drink to the wounded. 

But the man who impressed himself most on my 
memory was a surgeon with sleeves rolled up, who 
cut and cut without paying the slightest attention 
to what was going on around ; he was a man with 
a large nose and wrinkled cheeks, and every mo- 
ment flew into a passion at his assistants, who could 
not give him his knives, pincers, lint, or linen fast 
enough, or who were not quick enough sponging 
up the blood. 

Things went on quickly, however, for in less than 
a quarter of an hour he had cut off two legs. 

Without, against the posts, was a large wagon full 
of straw. 

They had just laid out on the table a Russian car- 
bineer, six feet in height at least ; a ball had pierced 
his neck near the ear, and while the surgeon was 
asking for his little knives, a cavalry surgeon passed 
before the shed. He was short, stout, and badly 
pitted with the small-pox, and held a portfolio under 
his arm. 

“Ha! Forel!” cried he, cheerfully. 


174. THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“Tt is Duchéne,” said our surgeon, turning 
around. “ How many wounded?” 

“ Seventeen to eighteen thousand.” 

“ Aha! Well, how goes it this morning? ” 

“ Passably—I am looking for a tavern.” 

Our surgeon left the shed to chat with his com- 
rade ; they conversed quietly, while the assistants 
sat down to drink a cup of wine, and the Russian 
rolled his eyes despairingly. 

“See, Duchéne ; you have only to go down the 
street, opposite that well, do you see? ” 

“ Very well indeed.” 

“ Just opposite you will see the canteen.” 

“Very good ; thank you ; I am off.” 

He started, and our surgeon called after him : 

“ A good appetite to you, Duchéne ! ” 

Then he returned to his Russian, whose neck he 
laid open. He worked ill-humoredly, constantly 
scolding his aids. 

“ Be quick !” he said, “ be quick ! ” 

The Russian writhed and groaned, but he paid no 
attention to that, and at last, throwing the bullet up- 
on the ground, he bandaged up the wound, and 
cried, “ Carry him off ! ” 

They lifted the Russian from the table, and 
stretched him on a mattress beside the others ; then 
they laid his neighbor upon the table. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 175 


I could not think that suck horrors took place 
in the world ; but I was yet to see worse than 
this. 

At five or six beds from mine sat an old corporal 
with his leg bound up. He closed one eye know- 
ingly, and said to his neighbor, whose arm had just 
been cut off : 

“ Conscript, look at that heap! I will bet that 
you cannot recognize your arm.” 

The other, who had hitherto shown the greatest 
courage, looked, and fell back senseless. 

Then the corporal began laughing, saying : 

“ He has recognized it. It is the lower one, with 
the little blue flower. It always produces that ef- 
fect.” 

He looked around self-approvingly, but no one 
laughed with him. 

Every moment the wounded called for water. 

“ Drink ! Drink !” 

When one began, all followed, and the old sol- 
dier had certainly conceived a liking for me, for 
each time he passed, he presented the cup. 

I did not remain in the shed more than an hour. 
A dozen ambulances drew up before the door, and 
the peasants of the country round, in their velvet 
jackets, and large black slouched hats, their whips 
on their shoulders, held the horses by the reins. A 


176 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


picket of hussars arrived soon after, and their officer 
dismounting, entered and said : 

“Excuse me, major, but here is an order to escort 
twelve wagons of wounded as far as Lutzen. Is it 
here that we are to receive them?” 

“Yes, it is here,” replied the surgeon. 

The peasants and the ambulance-drivers, after 
giving us a last draught of wine, began carrying us 
to the wagons. As one was filled, it departed, and 
, another advanced. I was in the third, seated on the 
straw, in the front row, beside a conscript of the 
Twenty-seventh, who had lost his right hand ;_ be- 
hind was another who had lost a leg ; then came one 
whose head was laid open, and another whose jaw 
was broken ; so was the wagon filled. 

They had given us our great-coats ; but despite 
them and the sun, which was shining brightly, we 
shivered with cold, and left only our noses and for- 
age-caps, or linen bandages on the splints visible. 
No one spoke ; each was too much occupied think- 
ing of himself. 

At moments I was terribly cold ; then flashes of 
heat would dart through me, and flush me as in a 
fever ; and indeed it was the beginning of the fever. 
But as we left Kaya, I was yet well ; I saw every- 
thing clearly, and it was not until we neared Leipzig 
that I felt indeed sick. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 177 


At last we were all placed in the wagons, and ar- 
ranged according to our condition—those able to sit 
up, in the first that set out, the others stretched in 
the last, and we started. The hussars rode beside 
us, smoking and chatting, paying no attention to us. 

In passing through Kaya, I saw all the horrors of 
war. The village was but a mass of cinders ; the 
roofs had fallen, and the walls alone remained stand- 
ing ; the rafters were broken ; we could see the 
remnants of rooms, stairs, and doors heaped within. 
The poor villagers, women, children, and old men, 
came and went with sorrowful faces. We could see 
them going up and down in their houses, as if they 
were in cages in the open air ; and in one we saw a 
mirror and an evergreen branch, showing where 
dwelt a young girl in time of peace. 

Ah! who could foresee that their happiness 
would so soon be destroyed, not by the fury of the 
winds or the wrath of heaven, but by the rage of 
man ! 

Even the cattle and pigeons seemed seeking their 
lost homes among the ruins; the oxen and the 
goats, scattered through the streets, lowed and bleat- 
ed plaintively. Fowls were roosting upon the trees, 
and everywhere, everywhere we saw the traces of 
cannon-balls. 

At the last house an old man with flowing white 


12 


178 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


hair, sat at the threshold of what had been his cot- 
tage, with a child upon his knees, glaring on us as 
we passed. ‘“ Did he see us?” I do not know. 
His furrowed brow and stony eyes spoke of despair. 
How many years of labor, of patient economy, of 
suffering, had he passed to make sure a quiet old 
age ! Now all was crushed, ruined ; the child and 
he had no longer a roof to cover their heads. 

And those great trenches—fully a mile of them 
—at which the country people were working in such 
haste, to keep the plague from completing the work 
war began! I saw them, too, from the top of the 
hill of Kaya, and turned away my eyes, horror- 
stricken. Russians, French, Prussians, were there 
heaped pell-mell, as if God had made them to love 
each other before the invention of arms and uni- 
forms, which divide them for the profit of those who 
rule them. There they lay, side by side ; and the 
part of them which could not die knew no more of 
war, but cursed the crimes that had for centuries 
kept them apart. 

But what was sadder yet, was the long line of 
ambulances—bearing the agonized wounded—those 
of whom they speak so much in the bulletins to make 
the loss seem less, and who die by thousands in the 
hospitals, far from all they love ; while at their 
homes cannon are firing, and church-bells are ring- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 179 


ing with joyous chimes—rejoicing that thousands 
of men are slain ! 

At length we reach Lutzen, but it was so full of 
wounded that we were obliged to continue on to 
Leipzig. We saw in the streets only half-dead 
wretches, stretched on straw along the walls of the 
houses. It was more than an hour before we 
reached a church, where fifteen or twenty of us who 
could no longer proceed were left. 

Our ambulance conductor and his men, after re- 
freshing themselves at a tavern at the street corner, 
remounted, and we continued our journey to Leip- 
zig. at 
I saw and heard no more; my head swam; a 
murmuring filled my ears, I thought trees were men, 
and an intolerable thirst burned my lips. 

For a long while past, many in the wagons had 
been shrieking, calling upon their mothers, trying 
to rise and fling themselves upon the road. I know 
not whether I did the same ; but I awoke as from 
a horrible dream, as two men seized me, each by a 
leg, placing their arms under my body, and carried 
me through a dark square. The sky seemed cov- 
ered with stars, and innumerable lights shone from 
an immense edifice before us. It was the hospital 
of the market-place at Leipzig. 

The two men who were carrying me ascended a 


180 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


spiral stairway which led to an immense hall where 
beds were laid together in three lines, so close that 
they touched each other. On one of these beds I 
was placed, in the midst of oaths, cries for pity, and 
muttered complaints from hundreds of fever-strick- 
en wounded. The windows were open, and the 
flames of the lanterns flickered in the gusts of wind. 
Surgeons, assistants, and nurses with great aprons 
tied beneath their arms, came and went, while the 
groans from the halls below, and the rolling of am- 
bulances, cracking of whips and neighing of horses 
without, seemed to pierce my very brain. While 
they were undressing me, they handled me roughly, 
and my wound pained me so horribly that I could 
not avoid shrieking. A surgeon came up at once, 
and scolded them for not being more careful. That 
is all I remember that night ; for I became delir- 
ious, and raved constantly of Catharine, Monsieur 
Goulden, and Aunt Grédel, as my neighbor, an old 
artilleryman, whom my cries prevented from sleep- 
ing, afterward told me. I awoke the next morn- 
ing at about eight o’clock, at the first roll of the 
drum, and saw the hall better, and then learned that 
I had the bone of my left shoulder broken. A 
dozen surgeons were around me; one of them, a 
stout, dark man, whom they called Monsieur the 
Baron, was opening my bandages, while an assist- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 181 


ant at the foot of the bed held a basin of warm water. 
The baron examined my wound ; all the others bent 
forward to hear what he might say. He spoke a 
few moments, but all that I could understand was, 
that the ball had struck from below, breaking the 
bone and passing out behind. I saw that he knew 
his business well, for the Prussians had fired from 
below, over the garden wall, so that the ball must 
have ranged upward. He washed the wound him- 
self, and with a couple of turns of his hand, replaced 
the bandage, so that my shoulder could not move, 
and everything was in order. 

I felt much better. Ten minutes after a hospital 
steward put a shirt on me without hurting me—such 
was his skill. 

The surgeon, passing to another bed, cried : 

“ What ! You here again, old fellow? ” 

“Yes ; it is I, Monsieur the Baron,” replied the 
artilleryman, proud to be recognized ; “ the first 
time was at Austerlitz, the second at Jena, and then 
I received two thrusts of a lance at Smolensk.” 

“Yes, yes,” said the surgeon kindly ; “ and now 
what is the matter with you?” 

“‘ Three sabre-cuts on my left arm while I was de- 
fending my piece from the Prussian hussars.” 

The surgeon unwound the bandage, and asked, 

“ Have you the cross? ” 


182 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“No, Monsieur the Baron.” 

“What is your name?” 

“Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse artil- 
lery.” 

“ Very good !” | 

He dressed the wounds, and went to the next, say- 
ing : 

“You will soon be well.” 

He returned, chatting with the others, and went 
out after finishing his round and giving some orders 
to the nurses. 

The old artilleryman’s heart seemed overflowing 
with joy ; and, as I concluded from his name that 
he came from Alsace, I spoke to him in our lan- 
guage, at which he was still more rejoiced. He was 
a tall fellow—at least six feet in height, with round 
shoulders, a flat forehead, large nose, light red mus- 
taches, and was as hard asa rock, but a good man for 
all that. His eyes twinkled when I spoke Alsatian 
to him, and he pricked up his ears at once. If I 
asked him in our tongue he was willing to give me 
everything he had, but he had only a clasp of the 
hand, which cracked the bones in mine to give. He 
called me Josephel, as they did at home, and said : 

“ Josephel, be careful how you swallow the medi- 
cines they give you, only take what you know. All 
that does not smell good is good for nothing. If 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 183 


they would give us a bottle of Rikevir every day we 
would soon be well ; but it is easier to spoil our di- 
gestion with a handful of vile boiled herbs, than to 
bring us a little of the good white wine of Alsace.” | 

When I told him I was afraid of dying of the 
fever, he looked angry with his great gray eyes, and 
said : 

“ Josephel, you are a fool. Do you think that 
such tall fellows as you and I were born to die ina 
hospital? No, no ; drive the idea from your head.” 

But he spoke in vain, for every morning the 
surgeons, making their rounds, found seven or eight 
dead. Some died in fevers, some in deadly chill ; 
so that heat or cold might be the presage of death. 

Zimmer said that all this proceeded from the evil 
drugs which the doctors invented. “Do you see 
that tall, thin fellow?” he asked. “ Well, that 
man can boast of having killed more men than a 
field-piece ; he is always primed, with his match 
lighted ; and that little brown fellow—I would 
send him instead of the Emperor to the Russians 
and Prussians ; he would kill more of them than a 
whole army corps.” 

He would have made me laugh with his jokes if 
the litters had not been constantly passing. 

- At the end of three weeks my shoulder began to 
heal, and Zimmer’s wounds were also doing well. 


184 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


They gave us every morning some good boiled beef 
which warmed our hearts, and in the evening a lit- 
tle beef with half a glass of wine, the sight 
alone of which rejoiced us and made the future look 
hopeful. 

About this time, too, they allowed us to walk in 
the large garden, full of elms, behind the hospital. 
There were benches under the trees, and we walked 
the paths like millionnaires in our gray great-coats 
and forage-caps. The weather was magnificent ; 
and we could see far along the poplar bordered Par- 
tha. This river falls into the Elster, on the left, 
forming a long blue line. On the same side stretches 
a forest of beech trees, and in front are three or four 
great white roads, which cross fields of wheat, bar- 
ley and hay, and hop plantations ; no sight could be 
pleasanter, or richer, especially when the breeze 
falls upon it and these harvests rise and fall in the 
sunlight like waves of the sea. The increasing heat 
presaged a fine year and often, when looking at the 
beautiful scenery around, I thought of Phalsbourg, 
and the tears came to my eyes. 

“T would like to know what makes you cry so, 
Josephel,” said Zimmer. “ Instead of catching a 
fever in the hospital, or losing’a leg or arm, like hun- 
dreds of others, here we are quietly seated in the 
shade ; we are well fed, and can smoke when we 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 185 


have any tobacco ; and still you ery. What more 
do you want, Josephel? ” 

Then I told him of Catharine ; of our walks at 
Quatre-Vents ; of our promises ; of all my former 
life, which then seemed a dream. He listened, 
smoking his pipe. 

“Yes, yes,” said he ; “all thisis very sad. Be- 
fore the conscription of 1798, I too was going to 
marry a girl of our village, who was named Mar- 
grédel, and whom I loved better than all the world 
beside. We had promised to marry each other, and 
all through the campaign of Zurich, I never passed 
a day without thinking of her. But when I first 
received a furlough and reached home, what did I 
hear? Margrédel had been three months married 
to a shoemaker, named Passauf.”’ 

“ You may imagine my wrath, Josephel; I could 
not see clearly ; I wanted to demolish everything ; 
and, as they told me that Passauf was at the Grand- 
Cerf brewery, thither I started, looking neither to 
the right nor left. There I saw him drinking with 
three or four rogues. As I rushed forward, he 
cried, ‘There comes Christian Zimmer! How 
goes it, Christian? Margrédel sends you her com- 
pliments.? He winked his eye. I seized a glass, 
which I hurled at his head, and broke to pieces, say- 
ing, ‘ Give her that for my wedding present, you 


186 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


beggar!’ The others, seeing their friend thus 
maltreated, very naturally fell uponme. I knocked 
two or three of them over with a jug, jumped on a 
table, sprang through a window, and beat a retreat. 

“¢ Tt was time,’ I thought. 

“But that was not all,” he continued; “TI 
had scarcely reached my mother’s when the gendar- 
merie arrived, and they arrested me. They put me 
on a wagon and conducted me from brigade to bri- 
gade until we reached my regiment, which was at 
Strasbourg. I remained six weeks at Finckmatt, 
and would probably have received the ball and 
chain, if we had not had to cross the Rhine to 
Hohenlinden. 

“ The Commandant Courtaud himself said to me: 

“< You can boast of striking a hard blow, but if 
you happen again to knock people over with jugs, 
it will not be well for you—lI warn you. Is that 
any way to fight, animal? Why do we wear sabres, 
if not to use them and do our country honor?’ 

“Thad no reply to make. 

“From that day, Josephel, the thought of mar- 
riage never troubled me. Don’t talk to me of a sol- 
dier who has a wife to think of. Look at our gen- 
erals who are married, do they fight as they used to? 
No, they have but one idea, and that is to increase 
their store and to profit by their wealth by living 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 187 


well with their duchesses and little dukes at home. 
My grandfather Yéri, the forester, always said that 
a good hound should be lean, and I think the same of 
good generals and good soldiers. The poor fellows 
are always in working order, but our generals grow 
fat from their good dinners at home.” 

So spoke my friend Zimmer in the honesty of his 
heart, and all this did not lessen my sadness. 

As soon as I could sit up, I hastened to inform 
Monsieur Goulden, by letter, that I was in the hos- 
pital of Halle, in one of the five buildings of Leip- 
zig, slightly wounded in the arm, but that he need 
fear nothing for me, for I was growing better and 
better. I asked him to show my letter to Catharine 
and Aunt Grédel to comfort them in the midst of 
such fearful war. I told him, too, that my greatest 
happiness would be to receive news from home and 
of the health of all whom I loved. 

From that moment I had no rest ; every morning 
T expected an answer, and to see the postmaster dis- 
tribute twenty or thirty letters in our ward, without 
my receiving one, almost broke my heart ; I hur- 
ried to the garden and wept. There was a little 
dark corner where they threw broken “pottery—a 
place buried in shade, which pleased me much, be- 
cause no one ever came there—there I passed my 
time dreaming on an old moss-covered bench. Evil 


188 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


thoughts crossed my brain—I almost believed that 
Catharine could forget her promises, and I muttered 
to myself, “ Ah ! if you had not been picked up at 
Kaya! All would then have been ended! Why 
were you not abandoned? Letter to have been, 
than to suffer thus ! ” 

To such a pass did I finally arrive, that I no longer 
wished to recover, when one morning the letter-car- 
rier, among other names, called that of Joseph Ber- 
tha. I lifted my hand without being able to speak, 
and a large, square letter, covered with innumerable 
post-marks, was handed me. I recognized Monsieur 
Goulden’s handwriting, and turned pale. 

“Well,” said Zimmer, laughing, “ it is come at 
last.” 

I did not answer, but thrust the letter in my 
pocket, to read it at leisure and alone. I went to 
the end of the garden and opened it. Two or three 
apple-blossoms dropped upon the ground, with an 
order for money, on which Monsieur Goulden had 
written a few words. But what touched me most 
was the handwriting of Catharine, which I gazed at - 
without reading a word, while my heart beat as if 
about to burst through my bosom. 

At last I grew a little calmer and read the letter 
slowly, stopping from time to time to make sure that 
I made no mistake—that it was indeed my dear 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 189 


Catharine who wrote, and that I was not in a 
dream. 

I have kept that letter, because it brought, so to 
speak, life back tome. Here it is as I received it on 
the eighth day of June, 1813: 


“ My Dear JosepH:—I write you to tell you I yet love 
you alone, and that, day by day, I love you more. 

“My greatest grief is to know that you are wounded, 
in a hospital, and that I cannot take care of you. Since 
the conscripts departed, we have not had a moment’s 
peace of mind. My mother says I am silly to weep night 
and day, but she weeps as much as I, and her wrath falls 
heavily on Pinacle, who dared not come to the market- 
place, because she carried a hammer in her basket. 

“ But our greatest grief was when we heard that the 
battle had taken place, and that thousands of men had 
fallen; mother ran every morning to the post-office, 
while I could not move from the house. At last your 
letter came, thank heaven! to cheer us. Now I am bet- 
ter, for I can weep at my ease, thanking God that He has 
saved your life. 

“ And when I think how happy we used to be, Joseph 
—when you came every Sunday, and we sat side by side 
without stirring and thought of nothing! Ah! we did 
not know how happy we were; we knew not what might 
happen—but God’s will be done. If you only recover! 
if we may only hope to be once again as happy as we 
were! 

“Many people talk of peace, but the Emperor so loves 
war, that I fear it is far off. 

“ What pleases me most is to know that your wound is 


190 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


not dangerous, and that you still love me. Ah! Joseph, 
I will love you forever—that is all I can say. I can say it 
from the bottom of my heart; and I know my mother 
loves you too! 

“Now, Monsieur Goulden wishes to say a few words 
to you, so I will close. The weather is beautiful here, 
and the great apple-tree in the garden is full of flowers; 
I have plucked a few, which I shall put in this letter 
when M. Goulden has written. Perhaps with God’s bless- 
ing we shall yet eat together one of those large apples. 
Embrace me as I embrace you, Joseph, Farewell! Fare- 
well! ” 


As I finished reading this, Zimmer arrived, and 
in my joy, I said : : 

“Sit down, Zimmer, and I will read you my 
sweetheart’s letter. You will see whether she is a 
Margrédel.” 

“Let me light my pipe first,” he answered ; and 
having done so, he added: ‘“ Go on, Josephel, but 
I warn you that I am an old bird, and do not believe 
all I hear ; women are more cunning than we.” 

Notwithstanding this bit of philosophy, I read 
Catharine’s letter slowly to him. When I had end- 
ed, he took it, and for a long time gazed at it dream- 
ily, and then handed it back, saying : 

“There! Josephel. She is a good girl, and a 
sensible one, and will never marry any one but you.” 

“Do you really think so?” 

“Yes ; you may rely upon her; she will never 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 19x 


marry a Passauf. I would rather distrust the Em- 
peror than such a girl.” 

I could have embraced Zimmer for these words ; 
but I said : 

“T have received a bill for one hundred francs. 
Now for some white wine of Alsace. Let us try to 
get out.” 

“ That is well thought of,” said he, twisting his 
mustache and putting his pipe in his pocket. “I 
do not like to mope in a garden when there are tay- 
erns outside. We must get permission.” 

We arose joyfully and went to the hospital, when 
the letter-carrier, coming out, stopped Zimmer, say- 
ing : 

* Are you Christian Zimmer, of the Second horse 
artillery?” 

“ T have that honor, monsieur the carrier.” 

“Well, here is something for you,” said the 
other, handing him a little package and a large let- 
ter. 

Zimmer was stupefied, never having received any- 
thing from home or from anywhere else. He opened 
the packet—a box appeared—then the . box— 
and saw the cross of honor. He became pale ; his 
eyes filled with tears, he staggered against a balus- 
trade, and then shouted “ Vive VEmpereur !” in 
such tones that the three halls rang and rang again. 


192 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


The carrier looked on smiling. 

“* You are satisfied,” said he. 

“Satisfied ! I need but one thing more.” 

“ And what is that? ” 

‘ Permission to go to the city.” 

“You must ask Monsieur Tardieu, the surgeon- 
in-chief.” 

He went away laughing, while we ascended arrh- 
in-arm, to ask permission of the surgeon-major, an 
old man, who had heard the “ Vive ?Empereur !” 
and demanded gravely : 

“What is the matter? ” 

Zimmer showed his cross and replied : 

“Pardon, major ; but I am more than usually 
merry.” 

“T can easily believe you,” said Monsieur Tar- 
dieu ; “ you want a pass to the city?” 

“ Tf you will be so good ; for myself and my com- 
rade, Joseph Bertha.” 

The surgeon had examined my wound the day be- 
fore. He took out his portfolio and gave us passes. 
We left as proud as kings—Zimmer of his cross, I, 
_ of my letter. 

Downstairs in the great vestibule the porter 
cried: 

“ Hold on there ! Where are you going?” 

Zimmer showed him our passes, and we sallied 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 193 


forth, glad to breathe the free air, without, once 
more. A sentinel showed us the post-office, where 
I was to receive my hundred frances. 

Then, more gravely, for our joy had sunk deeper 
in our hearts, we reached the gate of Halle about 
two musket shots to the left, at the end of a long 
avenue of lindens. Each faubourg is separated 
from the old ramparts only by these avenues, and all 
around Leipzig passes another very wide one, also 
bordered with lindens. The ramparts are very old 
—such as we see at Saint Hippolyte, on the upper 
Rhine,—crumbling, grass-grown walls; at least 
such they are if the Germans have not repaired them 
since 1813. | 


XVI 


How much were we to learn that day! At 
the hospital no one troubled himself about any- 
thing: when every morning you see fifty wounded 
come in, and when every evening you see as many 
depart upon the bier, you have the world before 
you in a narrow compass, and you think— 

“ After us comes the end of the universe! ” 

But without, these ideas change. When I caught 
the first glimpse of the street of Halle-—that old 
city with its shops, its gateways filled with mer- 
chandise, its old peaked roofs, its heavy wagons 
laden with bales, in a word, all its busy commercial 
life,—I was struck with wonder; I had never seen’ 
anything like it, and I said to myself: 

“This is indeed a mercantile city, such as they 
talk of—full of industrious people trying to make 
a living, or competence, or wealth; where every 
one seeks to rise, not to the injury of others, but by 
working—contriving night and day how to make 
his family prosperous; so that all profit by inven- 

194 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 195 


tions and discoveries. Here is the happiness of 
peace in the midst of a fearful war! ” 

But the poor wounded, wandering about with 
their arms in slings, or perhaps dragging a leg after 
them as they limped on crutches, were sad sights to 
see. 

I walked dreamily through the streets, led by 
Zimmer, who recognized every corner, and kept 
repeating: 

“ There—there is the church of Saint Nicholas; 
that large building is the university: that on yon- 
der is the Hotel de Ville.” 

He seemed to remember every stone, having 
been there in 1807, before the battle of Friedland, 
and continued: 

“We are the same here as if we were in Metz, 
or Strasbourg, or any other city in France. The 
people wish us well. After the campaign of 1806, 
they used to do all they could for us. The citizens 
would take three or four of us at a time to dinner 
with them. They even gave us balls and called us 
the heroes of Jena. Go where we would they 
everywhere received us as benefactors of the coun- 
try. We named their elector King of Saxony, and 
gave him a good slice of Poland.” 

Suddenly he stopped before a little, low door 
and cried: 


196 | THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“Hold! Here is the Golden Sheep Brewery. 
The front is on the other street, but we can enter 
here. Come!” 

I followed him into a narrow, winding passage 
which led to an old court, surrounded by rubble 
walls, with little moss-covered galleries under the . 
roof and a weathercock upon the peak, as in the 
Tanner’s Lane in Strasbourg. To the right was the 
brewery, and in a corner a great wheel, turned by 
an enormous dog, which pumped the beer to every 
story of the house. 

-The clinking of glasses was heard coming from 
a room which opened on the Rue de Tilly, and 
under the windows of this was a deep cellar re- 
sounding with the cooper’s hammer. The sweet 
smell of the new March beer filled the air, and 
Zimmer, with a look of satisfaction, cried: 

“Yes, here I came six years ago with Ferré and 
stout Rousillon. How glad I am to see it all again, 
Josephel! It was six years ago. Poor Rousillon! 
he left his bones at Smolensk last year! and Ferré 
must now be at home in his village near Toul, for 
he lost his left leg at Wagram. How everything 
comes back as I think of it! ” 

At the same time he pushed open the door, and 
we entered a lofty hall, full of smoke. I saw, 
through the thick, gray atmosphere, a long row of 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 197 


tables, surrounded by men drinking—the greater 
number in short coats and little caps, the remainder ~ 
in the Saxon uniform. The first were students, 
young men of family who came to Leipzig to study 
law, medicine, and all that can be learned by empty- 
ing glasses and leading a jolly life, which they call 
Fuchs-commerce. They often fight among them- 
selves with a sort of blade rounded at the point and 
only its tip sharpened, so that they slash their faces, 
as Zimmer told me, but life is never endangered. 
This shows the good sense of these students, who 
know very well that life is precious, and that one 
had better get five or six slashes, or even more, 
than lose it. 

Zimmer laughed as he told me these things ; his 
love of glory blinded him; he said they might as 
well load cannon with roasted apples, as fight with 
swords rounded at the point. 

But we entered the hall, and we saw the old- 
est of the students—a tall withered-looking man 
with a red nose and long flaxen beard, stained with 
beer—standing upon a table, reading the gazette 
aloud which hung from his hand like an apron. 
He held the paper in one hand, and in the other 
a long porcelain pipe. His comrades, with their 
long, light hair falling upon their shoulders, were 
listening with the deepest interest ; and as we 


198 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


entered, they shouted, “ Vaterland! Vater- 
land !” 

They touched glasses with the Saxon soldiers, 
while the tall student bent over to take up his glass, 
and the round, fat brewer cried: 

“ Gesundheit! Gesundheit!” 

Scarcely had we made half a dozen steps toward 
them, when they became silent. 

“ Come, come, comrades! ” cried Zimmer, “don’t 
disturb yourselves. Go on reading. We do not 
object to hear the news.” 

But they did not seem inclined to profit by our 
invitation, and the reader descended from the table, 
folding up his paper, which he put in his pocket. 

“ We are done,” said he, ‘‘ we are done.” 

“ Yes; we are done,” repeated the others, look- 
ing at each other with a peculiar expression. 

Two or three of the German soldiers rose and 
left the room, as if to take the air in the court. 
And the fat landlord said: 

“You do not perhaps know that the large hall 
is on the Rue de Tilly?” 

“ Yes; we know it very well,” replied Zimmer; 
“ but I like this little hall better. Here I used to 
come, long ago, with two old comrades, to empty 
a few glasses in honor of Jena and Auerstadt. I 
know this room of old.” 


‘ ‘Tih 


WE SAW HIM STANDING ON A TABLE. 








THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 199 


“ Ah! as you please, as you please,” returned 


the landlord. ‘ Do you wish some March beer?” 

“Yes; two glasses and the gazette.” 

“ Very good.” 

The glasses were handed us, and Zimmer, who 
observed nothing, tried to open a conversation with 
the students; but they excused themselves, and, 
one after another, went out. I saw that they hated 
us, but dared not show it. 

The gazette, which was from France, spoke of 
an armistice, after two new victories at Bautzen and 
Wurtschen. This armistice commenced on the 
sixth of June, and a conference was then being 
held at Prague, in Bohemia, to arrange on terms of 
peace. All this naturally gave me pleasure. I 
thought of again seeing home. But Zimmer, 
with his habit of thinking aloud, filled the hall 
with his reflections, and interrupted me at every 
line. : 

“ An armistice!” he cried. “Do we want an 
armistice. After having beaten those Prussians 
and Russians at Lutzen, Bautzen and Wurtschen, 
ought we not to annihilate them? Would they 
give us an armistice if they had beaten us? There, 
Joseph, you see the Emperor’s character—he is too 
good. It is his only fault. He did the same thing 
after Austerlitz, and he had to begin over again. I 


200 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT | 


tell you, he is too good ; and if he were not so, we 
should have been masters of Europe.” 

As he spoke, he looked around as if seeking as- 
sent; but the students scowled, and no one replied. 

At last Zimmer rose. 

“Come, Joseph,” said he; “I know nothing of 
politics, but I insist that we should give no armis- 
tice to those beggars. When they are down we 
should keep them there.” 

After we had paid our reckoning, and were once 
more in the street, he continued: 

“T do not know what was the matter with those 
people to-day. We must have disturbed them in 
something.” 

“It is very possible,” I replied. ‘ They cer- 

tainly did not seem like the good-natured folks you 
were speaking of.” 
_ “No,” said he. “ Those young fellows are far 
beneath the old students I have seen. T'hey passed 
—I might say—their lives at the brewery. They 
drank twenty and sometimes thirty glasses a day; 
even I, Joseph, had no chance with such fellows. 
Five or six of them whom they called ‘ seniors’ 
had gray beards and a venerable appearance. We 
sang Fanfan la Tulipe and ‘ King Dagobert’ to- 
gether, which are not political songs, you know. 
But these fellows are good for nothing.” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 201 


I knew afterward, that those students were mem- 
bers of the T’ugend-bund. 

On returning to the hospital, after having had 
a good dinner and drank a bottle of wine apiece 
in the inn of La Grappe in the Rue de Tilly, we 
learned that we were to go, that same evening, to 
the barracks of Rosenthal—a sort of depot for 
wounded, near Lutzen, where the roll was called 
morning and evening, but where, at all other times, 
we were at liberty to do as we pleased. Every 
three days, the surgeon made his visit; as soon as 
one was well, he received his order to march to re- 
join his corps. 

One may imagine the condition of from twelve 
to fifteen hundred poor wretches clothed in gray 
great-coats with leaden buttons, shakos shaped 
like flower-pots, and shoes worn out by marches 
and counter-marches—pale, weak, most of them 
without a sou, in a rich city like Leipzig. We did 
not cut much of a figure among these students, 
these good citizens and smiling young women, who, 
despite our glory, looked on us as vagabonds. 

All the fine stories of my comrade only made me 
feel my situation more bitterly. 

It is true that we were formerly well received, 
but in those days our men did not always act hon- 
estly by those who treated them like brothers, and 


202 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


now doors were slammed in our faces. We were 
reduced to the necessity of contemplating squares, 
churches, and the outside of sausage-shops, which 
are there very handsome, from morning till night. 
We tried every way of amusing ourselves; the 
idlers played at drogue,* the younger ones drank. 
We had also a game called “ Cat and Rat,” which 
we played in front of the barracks. A stake was 
planted in the ground, to which two cords were 
fastened; the rat held one of these, and the cat 
the other. Their eyes were bandaged. The cat 
was armed with a cudgel and tried to catch the rat, 
who kept out of the way as much as he could, lis- 
tening for the cat’s approach—thus they kept go- 
ing around on tiptoe, and exhibiting their cunning 
to the company. 
_ Zimmer told me that in former times the good 
Germans came in crowds to see this game, and 
you could hear them laugh half a league off when 
the cat touched the rat with his club. But times 
were indeed changed; every one passed by now 
without even turning their heads; we only lost our 
labor when we tried to interest them in our favor. 
During the six weeks we remained at Rosenthal, 
Zimmer and I often wandered through the city to 


* A game at cards, played among soldiers, in which the loser 
wears a forked stick on his nose till he wins again. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 203 


kill time. We went by way of the faubourg of 
Randstatt and pushed as far as Lindenau, on the 
road to Lutzen. There were nothing but bridges, 
swamps and wooded islets as far as the eye could 
reach. There we would eat an omelette with bacon 
at the tavern of the Carp, and wash it down with 
a bottle of white wine. They no longer gave us 
eredit, as after Jena; I believe, on the contrary, 
that the innkeeper would have made us pay double 
and triple, for the honor of the German Fatherland, 
if my comrade had not known the price of eggs and 
bacon and wine as well as any Saxon among them. 
In the evening, when the sun was setting behind 
the reeds of the Elster and the Pleisse, we returned 
to the city accompanied by the mournful notes of 
the frogs, which swarm in thousands in the marshes. 
Sometimes we would stop with folded arms at the 
railing of a bridge and gaze at the old ramparts of 
Leipzig, its churches, its old ruins, and its castle of 
Pleissenbourg, all glowing in the red twilight. The 
city runs to’a point where the Pleisse and the Partha 
branch off, and the rivers meet above. It is in the 
shape of a fan, the faubourg of Halle at the handle 
and the seven other faubourgs spreading off.* We 


* On the English map the river is the Rotha, not the Partha 
(or Parde), and at the point here alluded to it joins the Ester, 
not the Pletsse, as stated previously.—T7ranslator’s Note. 


204 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


gazed too at the thousand arms of the Elster and 
the Pleisse, winding like threads among islands al- 
ready growing dark in the twilight, although the 
waters glittered like gold. All this seemed very 
beautiful. | 

But if we had known that we would one day be 
forced to cross these rivers under the enemy’s can- 
non, after having lost the most fearful and the 
bloodiest of battles, and that entire regiments would 
disappear beneath those waters, which then glad- 
dened our eyes, I think that the sight would have 
made us sad enough. 

At other times we would walk along the bank of 
the Pleisse as far as Mark-Kléeberg. It was more 
than a league, and every field was covered with har- 
vests which they were hastening to garner. The 
people in their great wagons seemed not to see us, 
and if we asked for information they pretended not 
to understand us. Zimmer always grew angry. I 
held him back, telling him that the beggarly 
wretches only sought a pretext for falling upon us, 
and that we had, besides, orders to humor them. 

“Very good!” he said; “ but if the war comes 
this way, let them look out! We have over- 
whelmed them with benefits and this is how they 
receive us! ” 

But what shows better yet the ill-feeling of the 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 205 


people toward us was what happened us the day 
after the conclusion of the armistice, when, about 
eleven o’clock, we went together to bathe in the 
Elster. We had already thrown off our clothes, and 
Zimmer seeing a peasant approaching, cried: 

“ Holloa, comrade! Is there any danger here?” 

“No. Go in boldly,” replied the man. “ It is 
a good place.” 

Zimmer, mistrusting nothing, went some fifteen 
feet out. He was a good swimmer, but his left arm 
was yet weak, and the strength of the current car- 
ried him away so quickly that he could not even 
eatch the branches of the willows which hung over 
him; and were it not that he was carried to a ford, 
where he gained a footing, he would have been 
swept between two muddy islands, and certainly 
lost. 

The peasant stood to see the effect of his advice. 
I was very angry, and dressed myself as quickly as 
T could, shaking my fist at him, but he laughed, and 
ran, quicker than I could follow him, to the city. 
Zimmer was wild with wrath, and wished to pursue 
him to Connewitz; but how could we find him 
among three or four hundred houses, and if we did 
find him, what could we do? 

Finally we went into the water where there was 
footing, and its coolness calmed us. 


206 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I remember how, as we returned to Leipzig, Zim- 
mer talked of nothing but vengeance. 

“The whole country is against us!” cried he; 
“ the citizens look black at us, the women turn their 
backs, the peasants try to drown us, and the inn- 
keepers refuse us credit, as if we had not conquered 
them three or four times; and all this comes of our 
extraordinary goodness; we should have declared 
that we were their masters! We have granted to 
the Germans kings and princes; we have even made 
dukes, counts and barons with the names of their 
villages ; we have loaded them with honors, and see 
their gratitude! 

“ Tnstead of having ordered us to respect the peo- 
ple, we should be given full power over them; then 
the thieves would change faces and treat us well, as 
they didin 1806. Force is everything. In the first 
place, conscripts are made by force, for if they were 
not forced to come, they would all stay at home. 
Of the conscripts soldiers are made by foree—by 
discipline being taught them; with soldiers battles 
are gained by force, and then people are forced to 
give you everything: they prepare triumphal 
arches for you and call you heroes because they 
are afraid of you ; that is how itis ! 

“But the Emperor is too good. If he were not so 
good I would not have been in danger of drowning 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 207° 


to-day ;—the sight of my uniform would have made 
that peasant tremble at the idea of telling me a lie.” 

So spoke Zimmer, and all this yet remains in my 
memory. It happened August 12, 1813. 

Returning to Leipzig, we saw joy painted on the 
countenances of the inhabitants. It did not display 
itself openly; but the citizens, meeting, would 
shake hands with an air of huge satisfaction, and 
the general rejoicing glistened even in the eyes of 
servants and the poorest workmen. 

Zimmer said: ‘ These Germans seem to be merry 
about something, they all look so good-natured.” 

“Yes,” I replied; “their good humor comes 
from the fine weather and good harvest.” 

It was true the weather was very fine, but when 
we reached the barracks, we found some of our offi- 
cers at the gate, talking eagerly together, while 
those who were going by came up to listen, and 
then we learned the cause of so much joy. The 
conference at Prague was broken off, and Austria, 
too, was about to declare war against us, which gave 
us two hundred thousand more men to take care of. 

I have learned since that we then stood three 
hundred thousand men against five hundred and 
twenty thousand, and that among our enemies were. 
two old French generals, Moreau and Bernadotte. 
Every one can read that in books, but we did not 


208 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


yet know it, and we were sure of victory, for we had 
never lost a battle. The ill-feeling of the people 
did not trouble us: in time of war peasants and citi- 
zens are in a manner reckoned as nothing; they are 
only asked for money and provisions, which they al- 
ways give, for they know that if they made the least 
resistance they would be stripped to the last far- 
thing. 

The day after we got this important news there 
was a general inspection, and twelve hundred of the 
wounded of Lutzen were ordered to rejoin their 
corps. They went by companies with arms and bag- 
gage, some following the road to Altenbourg, which 
runs along the Elster, and some the road to Wurt- 
zen, farther to the left. 

Zimmer was of the number, having himself asked 
leave to go. I went with him just beyond the gate, 
and there we embraced with emotion. I stayed be- 
hind, as my arm was still weak. 

We were now not more than five or six hundred, 
among whom were a number of masters of arms, of 
teachers of dancing and French elegance—fellows 
to be found at all depots of wounded. I did not 
care to become acquainted with them, and my only 
consolation was in thinking of Catharine, and some- 
times of my old comrades Klipfel and Zébédé, of 
whom I received no tidings. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 209 


It was a sad enough life; the people looked upon 
us with an evil eye; they dared say nothing, know- 
ing that the French army was only four days’ march 
away, and Bliicher and Schwartzenberg much 
farther. Otherwise, how soon they would have 
fallen upon us! 

One evening the rumor prevailed that we had 
just won a great victory at Dresden. There was 
general consternation; the inhabitants remained 
shut up in their houses. I went to read the news- 
paper at the “ Bunch of Grapes,” in the Rue de 
Tilly. The French papers were there always on the 
table; no one opened them but me. 

But the following week, at the beginning of Sep- 
tember, I saw the same change in people’s faces' as 
I observed the day the Austrians declared against 
us. I guessed we had met some misfortune, and we 
had, as I learned afterward, for the Paris papers said 
nothing of it. 

Bad weather set in at the end of August, and the 
rain fell in torrents. I no longer left the barracks. 
Often, as seated upon my bed, I gazed at the Elster 
boiling beneath the falling floods, and the trees, and 
the little islands swaying in the wind, I thought: 
“ Poor soldiers! poor comrades! What are you do- 
ing now? Where are you? On the high road per- 
haps, or in the open fields! ” 

14 


210 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


And despite my sadness at living where I was, I 
remembered that I was less to be pitied than they. 
But one day the old Surgeon Tardieu made his 
round and said to me: 

“Your arm is strong again—let us see—raise it 
forme. All right! all right! ” 

The next day at roll-call, they passed me into a 
hall where there were clothing, knapsacks, car- 
tridge-boxes and shoes in abundance. I received a 
musket, two packets of cartridges, and marching 
papers for the Sixth at Gauernitz, on the Elbe. 
This was the first of October. Twelve or fifteen of 
us set out together, under charge of a quartermaster 
of the Twenty-seventh named Poitevin. 

On the road, one after another left us to take 
the way to his corps; but Poitevin, four infantry 
men and I, kept on to the village of Gauernitz. 


XVII 


We were following the Wurtzen high road, our 
muskets slung on our backs, our great-coat capes 
turned up, bending beneath our knapsacks, and 
feeling down-hearted enough, as you may imagine. 
The rain was falling, and ran from our shakos down 
our necks; the wind shook the poplars, and their 
yellow leaves, fluttering around us, told of the ap- 
proach of winter. So hour after hour passed. 

From time to time, at long intervals, we came 
upon a village with its sheds, dunghills and gardens, 
surrounded with palings. The women standing be- 
hind their windows, with little dull panes, gazed at 
us as we went by ; a dog bayed ; a man splitting 
wood at his threshold turned to follow us with his 
eyes, and we kept on, on, splashed and muddied to 
our necks. We looked back; from the end of the 
village the road stretched on as far as one could 
see; gray clouds trailed along the despoiled fields, 
and a few lean rooks were flying away, uttering 
their melancholy ery. 


Nothing could be sadder than such a view; and 
21It 


212 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


to it was added the thought that winter was coming 
on, and that soon we must sleep without a roof, in’ 
the snow. We might well be silent, as we were, 
save the quartermaster Poitevin. He was a vet- 
eran,—sallow, wrinkled, with hollow cheeks, mus- 
taches an ell long, and a red_nose, like all brandy 
drinkers. He had a lofty way of speaking, which 
he interspersed with barrack slang. When the rain 
came down faster than ever, he cried, with a strange 
burst of laughter: “ Ay, ay, Poitevin, this will teach 
you to hiss!” The old drunkard perceived that I 
had a little money in my pocket, and kept near me, 
saying: “ Young man, if your knapsack tires you, 
hand it to me.” But I only thanked him for his 
kindness. 

Notwithstanding my disgust at being with a man 
who gazed at every tavern sign when we passed 
through a village, and said at each one: “ A little 
glass of something would do us good as the time 
passes,” I could not help paying for a glass now and 
then, so that he did not quit me. 

We were nearing Wurtzen and the rain was fall- 
ing in torrents, when the quartermaster cried for 
the twentieth time: 

“ Ay, Poitevin! Here is life for you! This will 
teach you to hiss! ” 

“What sort of a proverb is that of yours?” I 


~ 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 213 


asked; ‘ I would like to know how the rain would 
teach you to hiss.” | 

“Tt is not a proverb, young man; it is an idea 
which runs in my head when I try to be cheerful.” 

Then, after a moment’s pause, he continued: 

“You must know,” said he, “that in 1806, 
when I was a’student at Rouen, I happened once 
to hiss a piece in the theatre, with a number of other 
young fellows like myself. Some hissed, some ap- — 
plauded; blows were struck, and the police carried 
us by dozens to the watch-house. The Emperor, 
hearing of it, said: ‘Since they like fighting so 
much, put them in my armies! There they can 
gratify their tastes!’ And, of course, the thing 
was done; and no one dared hiss in that part of the 
country, not even fathers and mothers of families.” 

* You were a conscript, then?” I asked. 

* No, my father had just bought me a substitute. 
It was one of the Emperor’s jokes ; one of those 
jokes which we long remember ; twenty or thirty 
of us are dead of hardship and want. A few others, 
instead of filling honorable positions in their towns, 
such as doctors, judges, lawyers, have become 


old drunkards. This is what is called a good 


joke !” 
Then he began to laugh, looking at me from the 
corner of his eye. I had become very thoughtful, 


214 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


and two or three times more, before we reached 
Gauernitz, I paid for the poor wretch’s little glasses 
of something. 

It was about five o’clock in the evening, and we 
were approaching the village of Risa, when we de- 
scried an old mill, with its wooden bridge, over 
which a bridle-path ran. We struck off from the 
road and took this path, to make a short cut to the 
village, when we heard cries and shrieks for help, 
and, at the same moment, two women, one old, and 
the other somewhat younger, ran across a garden, 
dragging two children with them. They were try- 
ing to gain a little wood which bordered the road, 
and at the same moment we saw several of our sol- 
diers come out of the mill with sacks, while others 
came up from a cellar with little casks, which they 
hastened to place on a cart standing near ; still oth- 
ers were driving cows and horses from a stable, while 
an old man stood at the door, with uplifted hands, 
as if calling down Heaven’s curse upon them ; and 
five or six of the evil-minded wretches surrounded 
the miller, who was all pale, with his eyes starting 
from their sockets. 

The whole scene, the mill, the dam, the broken 
windows, the flying women, our soldiers in fatigue 
caps, looking like veritable bandits, the old man 
cursing them, the cows shaking their heads to throw 


) 
) 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 215 


off those who were leading them, while others 
pricked them behind with their bayonets—all seems 
yet before me—I seem yet to see it. 

“There,” cried the quartermaster, “there are 
fellows pillaging. We are not far from the army.” 

“ But that is horrible!” I cried. “ They are 
robbers.” 

“Yes,” returned the quartermaster, coolly ; “ it 
is contrary to discipline, and if the Emperor knew 
of it, they would be shot like dogs.” 

We crossed the little bridge, and found the thieves 
crowded around a cask which they had tapped, pass- 
ing around the cup. This sight roused the quar- 
termaster’s indignation, and he cried majestically : 

“ By whose permission are you plundering in this 
way?” 

Several turned their heads, but seeing that we 
were but three, for the rest of our party had gone on, 
one of them replied : 

“ Ha ! what do you want, old joker? A little of 
the spoil, I suppose. But you need not curl up 
your mustaches on that account. Here, drink a 
drop.” 

The speaker held out the cup, and the quarter- 
master took it and drank, looking at me as he did so, 

“Well, young man,” said he, “ will you haye 
some, too? It is famous wine, this.” 


216 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“No, I thank you,” I replied. 

Several of the pillaging party now cried : 

“ Hurry, there ; it is time to get back to camp.” 

“No, no,” replied others ; “ there is more to be 
had here.” 

“Comrades,” said the quartermaster, in a tone 
of gentle reproof and warning, “ you know, com- 
rades, you must go gently about it.” 

“Yes, yes, old fellow,” replied a drum-major, 
with half-closed eyes, and a mocking smile ; “do 
not be alarmed ; we will pluck the pigeon accord- 
ing to rule. We will take care; we will take 
care.” 

The quartermaster said no more, but seemed 
ashamed on my account. He at length said : 

“What would you have, young man? War is 
war. One cannot see himself starving, with food at 
hand.” 

He was afraid I would report him ; he would 
have remained with the pillagers, but for the fear of 
being captured. I replied, to relieve his mind : 

“ Those are probably good fellows, but the sight 
of a cup of wine makes them forget everything.” 

At length, about ten o’clock at night, we saw the 
bivouac fires, on a gloomy hill-side to the right of the 
village of Gauernitz, and of an old castle from which 
a few lights also shone. Farther on, in the plain, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 217 


a great number of other fires were burning. The 
night was clear, and as we approached the bivouac, 
the sentry challenged : 

* Who goes there?” 

“France !” replied the quartermaster. 

My heart beat, as I thought that, in a few mo- 
ments, I should again meet my old comrades, if they 
were yet in the world. 

Some men of the guard came forward from a sort 
of shed, half a musket-shot from the village, to find 
out who we were. The commandant of the post, a 
gray-haired sub-lieutenant, his arm in a sling under 
his cloak, asked us whence we came, whither we 
were going, and whether we had met any parties of 
Cossacks on our route. The quartermaster an- 
swered his questions. The lieutenant informed us 
that Souham’s division had that morning left Gauer- 
nitz, and ordered us to follow him, that he might 
examine our marching-papers ; which we did in si- 
lence, passing among the bivouac fires, around which 
men, covered with dried mud, were sleeping, in 
groups of twenty. Not one moved. 

We arrived at the officers’ quarters. It was an 
old brick-kiln, with an immense roof, resting on 
posts driven into the ground. A large fire was burn- 
ing in it, and the air was agreeably warm. Around 
it soldiers were sleeping, with a contented look, their 


218 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


backs against the wall ; the flames lighted up their 
figures under the dark rafters. Near the posts shone 
stacks of arms. I seem yet to see these things ; I 
feel the kindly warmth which penetrated me. Isee 
my comrades, their clothes smoking, a few paces 
from the kiln, where they were gravely waiting un- 
til the officer should have finished reading the 
marching-papers, by the dim, red light. One 
bronzed old veteran watched alone, seated on the 
ground, and mending a shoe with a needle and 
thread. 

The officer handed me back my paper first, say- 
ing : 

“You will rejoin your battalion to-morrow, two 
leagues hence, near Torgau.” 

Then tke old soldier, looking at me, placed his 
hand upon the ground, to show that there was room 
beside him, and I seated myself. I opened my 
knapsack, and put on new stockings and shoes, 
which I had brought from Leipzig, after which I 
felt much better. 

The old man asked : 

“You are rejoining your corps? ” 

“Yes ; the Sixth at Torgau.” 

“ And you came from?” 

“ The hospital at Leipzig.” 

“ That is easily seen,” said he ; “ you are fat as 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 219 


a beadle. They fed you on chickens down there, 
while we were eating cow-beef.” 

I looked around at my sleeping neighbors. He 
was right ; the poor conscripts were mere skin and 
bone. They were bronzed as veterans, and scarcely 
seemed able to stand. 

The old man, in a moment, continued his ques- 
tions : 

** You were wounded?” 

“ Yes, veteran, at Lutzen.” 

“ Four months in the hospital !” said he, whis- 
tling ; “what luck! I have just returned from 
Spain, flattering myself that I was going to meet the 
Kaiserliks of 1807 once more—sheep, regular 
sheep—but they have become worse than guerillas. 
Everything goes to the bad.” 

He said the most of this to himself, without pay- 
ing much attention to me, all the while sewing his 
shoe, which from time to time he tried on, to be sure 
that the sewn part would not hurt his foot. At last 
he put the thread in his knapsack, and the shoe 
upon his foot, and stretched himself upon a truss of 
straw. 

I was too fatigued to sleep at once, and for an 
hour lay awake. 

In the morning I set out again with the quarter- 
master Poitevin, and three other soldiers of Sou- 


220 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


ham’s division. Our route lay along the bank of 
the Elbe ; the weather was wet and the wind swept 
fiercely over the river, throwing the spray far on the 
land. 

We hastened on for an hour, when suddenly the 
quartermaster cried ; | 

* Attention ! ” 

He had halted suddenly, and stood listening. We 
could hear nothing but the sighing of the wind 
through the trees, and the splash of the waves ; but 
his ear was finer than ours. : 

“They are skirmishing yonder,” said he, point- 
ing to a wood on our right. ‘“ The enemy may be 
near us, and the best thing we can do is to enter the 
wood and pursue our way cautiously. We can see 
at the other end of it what is going on ; and if the 
Prussians or Russians are there, we can beat a re 
treat without their perceiving us. If they are 
French, we will go on.” 

We all thought the quartermaster was right ; 
and, in my heart, I admired the shrewdness of the 
old drunkard. We kept on toward the wood, Poite- 
vin leading, and the others following, with our 
pieces cocked. We marched slowly, stopping every 
hundred paces to listen. ‘The shots grew nearer ; 
they were fired at intervals, and the quartermaster 
said ; 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 221 


“They are sharp-shooters reconnoitring a body 
of cavalry, for the firing is all on one side.” 

It was true. In a few moments we perceived, 
through the trees, a battalion of French infantry 
about to make their soup, and in the distance, on 
the plain beyond, platoons of Cossacks defiling from 
one village to another. A few skirmishers along 
the edge of the wood were firing on them, but they 
were almost beyond musket-range. 

“ There are your people, young man,” said Poite- 
vin. “ You are at home.” 

He had good eyes to read the number of a regi- 
ment at such a distance. I could only see ragged 
soldiers with their cheeks and famine-glistening 
eyes. Their great-coats were twice too large for 
them, and fell in folds along their bodies like cloaks. 
I say nothing of the mud ; it waseverywhere. No 
wonder the Germans were exultant, even after our 
victory at Dresden. 

We went toward a couple of little tents, before 
which three or four horses were nibbling the scanty 
grass. I saw Colonel Lorain, who now commanded 
the Third battalion—a tall, thin man, with brown 
mustaches and a fierce air. He looked at me 
frowningly, and when I showed my papers, only 
said : 

* Go and rejoin your company.” 


222 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I started off, thinking that I would recognize some 
of the Fourth ; but, since Lutzen, companies had 
been so mingled with companies, regiments with 
regiments, and divisions with divisions, that, on ar- 
riving at the camp of the grenadiers, I knew no one. 
The men seeing me approach, looked distrustfully 
at me, as if to say: 

“Does he want some of our beef? Let us see 
what he brings to the pot !” 

I was almost ashamed to ask for my company, 
when a bony veteran, with a nose long and pointed 
like an eagle’s beak, and a worn-out coat hanging 
from his shoulders, lifting his head, and gazing at 
me, said quietly : 

“ Hold! Itis Joseph. I thought he was buried 
four months ago.” 

Then I recognized my poor Zébédé. My appear- 
ance seemed to affect him, for, without rising, he 
squeezed my hand, erying : 

“ Klipfel ! here is Joseph ! ” 

Another soldier, seated near a pot, turned his 
head, saying : 

“Tt is you, Joseph, is it? Then you were not 
killed.” 

This was all my welcome. Misery had made 
them so selfish that they thought only of themselves. 
But Zébédé was always good-hearted ; he made me 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 223 


sit near him, throwing a glance at the others that 
commanded respect, and offered me his spoon, which 
he had fastened to the button-hole of his coat. I 
thanked him, and produced from my knapsack a 
dozen sausages, a good loaf of bread, and a flask 
brandy, which I had the foresight to purchase at 
Risa. I handed a couple of the sausages to Zébédé, 
‘who took them with tears in his eyes. I was also 
going to offer some to the others ; but he put his 
hand on my arm, saying : 

“ What is good to eat is good to keep.” 

We retired from the circle and ate, drinking at 
the same time ; the rest of the soldiers said nothing, 
but looked wistfully at us. Klipfel, smelling the 
sausages, turned and said : | 

“Holloa! Joseph! Come and eat with us. 
Comrades are always comrades, you know.” 

“That is all very well,” said Zébédé ; “ but I 
find meat and drink the best comrades.” 

He shut up my knapsack himself, saying : 

“ Keep that, Joseph. I have not been so well re- 
galed for more than a month. You shall not lose 
by it.” 

A half-hour after, the recall was beaten ; the 
skirmishers came in, and Sergeant Pinto, who was 
among the number, recognized me, and said : 

“Well ; so you have escaped! But you came 


224 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


back in an evil moment! Things go wrong— 
wrong !” 

The colonel and commandants mounted, and we 
began moving. The Cossacks withdrew. We 
marched with arms at will ; Zébédé was at my side 
and related all that passed since Lutzen ; the great 
victories of Bautzen and Wurtschen ; the forced 
marches to overtake the retreating enemy; the 
march on Berlin ; then the armistice, during which 
we were encamped in the little towns ; then the ar- 
rival of the veterans of Spain—men aceustomed to 
pillaging and living on the peasantry. 

Unfortunately, at the close of the armistice all 
‘were against us. The country people looked on 
us with horror ; they cut the bridges down, and 
kept the Russians and Prussians informed of all our 
movements, and whenever any misfortune happened 
us, instead of helping us, they tried to force us deep- 
erin the mire. The great rains came to finish us, 
and the day of the battle of Dresden it fell so heavily 
that the Emperor’s hat hung down upon his shoul- 
ders. But when victorious, we only “laughed at 
these things ; we felt warm just the same, and we 
could change our clothes. But the worst of all was 
when we were beaten, and flying through the mud 
—hussars, dragoons, and such gentry on our tracks, 
—we not knowing when we saw a light in the night 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 225 


whether to advance or to perish in the falling 
deluge. 

Zébédé told me all this in detail ; how, after the 
victory of Dresden, General Vandamme, who was 
to cut off the retreat of the Austrians, had penetrat- 
ed to Kulm in his ardor ; and how those whom we 
had beaten the day before fell upon him on all sides, 
front, flank, and rear, and captured him and several 
other generals, utterly destroying his corps d’armeée. 
Two days before, on the 26th of August, a similar 
misfortune happened to our division, as well as to 
the Fifth, Sixth, and Eleventh corps on the heights 
of Lowenberg. We should have crushed the Prus- 
sians there, but by a false movement of Marshal 
Macdonald, the enemy surprised us in a ravine with 
our artillery in confusion, our cavalry disordered, 
and our infantry unable to fire owing to the pelting 
rain ; we defended ourselves with the bayonet, and 
the Third battalion made its way, in spite of the 
Prussian charges, to the river Katzbach. There 
Zébédé received two blows on his head from the 
butt of a grenadier’s musket, and was thrown into 
the river. The current bore him along, while he 
held Captain Arnauld by the arm ; and both would 
have been lost, if by good luck the captain in the 
darkness of the night had not seized the overhang- 
ing branch of a tree on the other side, and thus man- 


TS 


226 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


aged to regain the bank. He told me how all that 
night, despite the blood that flowed from his nose 
and ears, he had marched to the village of Goldberg, 
almost dead with hunger, fatigue, and his wounds, 
and how a joiner had taken pity upon him and given 
him bread, onions, and water. He told me how, 
on the day following, the whole division, followed 
by the other corps, had marched across the fields, 
each one taking his own course, without orders, be- 
cause the marshals, generals, and all mounted offi- 
cers had fled as far as possible, in the fear of being 
captured. He assured me that fifty hussars could 
have captured them, one after another ; but that by 
good fortune, Bliicher could not cross the flooded 
river, so that they finally rallied at Wolda, where 
the drummers of every corps beat the march for 
their regiments at all the corners of the village. By 
this means every man extricated himself and fol- 
lowed his own drum. 

But the happiest thing in this rout was, that a lit- 
tle farther on, at Buntzlau, their officers met them, 
surprised at yet having troops to lead. This was 
what my comrade told me, to say nothing of the dis- 
trust which we were obliged to have of our allies, _ 
who at any moment might fall on us unprepared to 
receive them. He told me how Marshal Oudinot 
and Marshal Ney had been beaten: the first at 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 227 


Gross-Beeren, and the other at Dennewitz. This 
was sad indeed, for in these retreats the conscripts 
died from exhaustion, sickness and every kind of 
hardship. The veterans of Spain and Germany, 
hardened by bad weather, could alone resist such 
fatigue. 

“Ina word,” said Zébédé, “ we had everything 
against us—the country, the continual rains, and 
our own generals, who were weary of all this. Some 
of them are dukes and princes, and grow tired of be- 
ing forever in the mud instead of being seated in 
comfortable arm-chairs; and others, like Van- 
damme, are impatient to become marshals, by per- 
forming some grand stroke. We poor wretches, 
who have nothing to gain but being crippled the rest 
of our days, and who are the sons of peasants and 
workingmen who fought to get rid of one nobility, 
must perish to create a new one ! ” 

I saw then that the poorest, the most fhizedable | 
are not always the most foolish, and that through 
suffering they come at last to see the sorrowful truth. 
But I said nothing, and I prayed God to give me 
strength and courage to support the hardships the 
coming of which these faults and this injustice fore- 
told. 

We were between three armies, who were uniting 
to crush us ; that of the north, commanded by Ber- 


228 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


nadotte ; that of Silesia, commanded by Bliicher ; 
and the army of Bohemia, commanded by Schwartz- 
enberg. We believed at one time we were going 
to cross the Elbe, to fall on the Prussians and 
Swedes ; at another, that we were about attacking 
the Austrians toward the mountains as we had done 
fifty times in Italy and other places. But they end- 
ed by understanding our movements, and when we 
seemed to approach, they retired. They feared the 
Emperor especially, but he could not be at once in — 
Bohemia and Silesia, and so we were forced to make 
horrible marches and countermarches. 

All that the soldiers asked, was to fight, for 
through marching and sleeping in the mud, half ra- 
tions and vermin had made their lives a misery. 
Each one prayed that all this might end one way or 
the other. It was too much for human endurance; 
it could not last. 

I, myself, at the end of a few days, was weary of 
such a life ; my legs could scarcely support me, and 
I grew leaner and leaner. 

Every night we were disturbed by a beggar 
named Thielmann, who raised the peasantry against 
us ; he followed us like a shadow; watched us 
from village to village, on the heights, on the roads, 
in the valleys ; his army were all who bore us a 
grudge, and he had always men enough. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 229 


It was about this time, too, that the Bavarians, 
the Badeners, and the Wurtembergers declared 
against us, so that all Europe was upon us. 

At length we had the consolation of seeing that 
the army was collecting as for a great battle ; in- 
stead of meeting Platow’s Cossacks and Thielmann’s 
partisans in the neighborhood of villages, we found 
hussars, chasseurs, dragoons from Spain, artillery, 
pontoon trains on the march. The rain still fell in 
floods ; those who could no longer drag themselves 
along sat down in the mud at the foot of a tree and 
abandoned themselves to their unhappy fate. 

The eleventh of October we bivouacked near the 
village of Lousig ; the twelfth near Graffenhein- 
ichen ; the thirteenth we crossed the Mulda, and 
saw the Old Guard defile across the bridge, and La- 
Tour-Maubourg. It was announced that the Em- 
peror crossed too, but we departed with Dombrow- 
ski’s division and Souham’s corps. 

At moments the rain would cease falling and a 
ray of autumn sun shine out from between the 
clouds, and then we could see the whole army 
marching ; cavalry and infantry advancing from 
all sides, on Leipzig. On the other side of the 
Mulda glittered the bayonets of the Prussians ; but 
we yet saw no Austrians and Russians : they doubt- 
less came from other directions. 


230. THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


_ On the fourteenth of October, our battalion was 
detached to reconnoitre the village of Aaken. The 
enemy were in force there, and received us with a 
scattering artillery fire, and we remained all night - 
without being able to light a fire, on account of the 
pouring rain. The next day we set out to rejoin 
our division by forced marches. Every one said, I 
know not why : 

“The battle is approaching !_ the fight is com- 
ing on!” 

Sergeant Pinto declared that he felt the Emperor 
inthe air. I felt nothing, but I knew that we were 
marching on Leipzig, and I thought to myself, “ If 
we have a battle, God grant that you do not get an 
ugly hurt as at Lutzen, and that you may see Cath- 
arine again!” The night following the weather 
cleared up a little, thousands of stars shone out, and 
we still kept on. The next day, about ten o’clock, 
near a village whose name I cannot recollect, we 
were ordered to halt, and then we felt a trembling 
in the air. The colonel and Sergeant Pinto said : 

“The battle has begun!” and at the same mo- 
ment, the colonel, waving his sword, cried : 

“ Forward !” 

We started at a run; knapsacks, cartouche-boxes, 
muskets, mud, all drove on ; we cared for nothing. 
Half an hour after we saw, a few thousand paces 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 231 


ahead, a long column, in which followed artillery, 
cavalry, and infantry, one after the other ; behind 
us, on the road to Duben, we saw another, all 
pushing forward at their utmost speed. Regi- 
ments even advancing at the double quick across 
the fields. 

At the end of the road we could see the two spires 
of the churches of Saint Nicholas and Saint Thomas 
in Leipzig, piercing the sky, while to the right and 
left, on both sides of the city, rose great clouds of 
smoke through which broad flashes were darting. 
The noise increased ; we were yet more than a 
league from the city, but we were forced to almost 
shout to hear each other, and men gazed around, 
pale as death, seeming by their looks to say : 

“ This is indeed a battle? ” 

Sergeant Pinto cried that it was worse than Ey- 
lau. He laughed no more, nor did Zébédé ; but 
on, on we rushed, officers incessantly urging us 
forward. We seemed to grow delirious ; the love 
of country was indeed striving within us, but 
still greater was the furious eagerness for the 
fight. 

At eleven o’clock we descried the battle-field 
about a league in front of Leipzig. We saw the 
steeples and roofs crowded with people, and the old 
ramparts on which I had walked so often, thinking 


232 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


of Catharine. Opposite us, twelve or fifteen hun- 
dred yards distant, two regiments of red lancers 
were drawn up, and a little to the left, two or three 
regiments of mounted chasseurs in the fields along 
the Partha, and between them filed the long column 
from Duben. Farther on, along the slope, were 
the divisions Ricard, Dombrowski, Souham, and sey- 
eral others, with their rear to the city ; cannons lim- 
bered, with their caissons—the cannoneers and artil- 
lerymen on horseback—stood ready to start off ; and 
far behind, on a hill, around one of those old farm- 
houses with flat roofs and immense outlying sheds, 
so often seen in that country, glittered the brilliant 
uniforms of the staff. 

It was the army of reserve, commanded by Ney. 
His left wing communicated with Marmont, who 
was posted on the road to Halle, and his right with 
the grand army, commanded by the Emperor in 
person. In this manner our troops formed an im- 
mense circle around Leipzig ; and the enemy, ar- 
riving from all points, sought to join their divisions 
so as to form a yet larger circle around us, and to 
inclose us in Leipzig as in a trap. 

While we waited thus, three fearful battles were 
going on at once: one against the Austrians and 
Russians at Wachau ; another against the Prussians 
at Mockern on the road to Halle ; and the third on 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 233 


the road to Lutzen, to defend the bridge of Linde- 
nau, attacked by General Giulay. 

These things I learned afterward ; but every 
one ought to tell what he saw himself : in this way 
the world will know the truth. 


XVIII 


Tue battalion was commencing to descend the 
hill, opposite Leipzig, to rejoin our division, when 
we saw a staff-officer crossing the plain below, and 
coming at full gallop toward us. In two minutes 
he was with us ; Colonel Lorain had spurred for- 
ward to meet him ; they exchanged a few words, 
and the officer returned. Hundreds of others were 
rushing over the plain in the same manner, bearing 
orders. 

“ Head of column to the right!” shouted the 
colonel. 

We took the direction of a wood, which skirts the 
Duben road some half a league. It was a beech 
forest, but in it were birches and oaks. Once at its 
borders, we were ordered to re-prime our guns, and 
the battalion was deployed through the wood as 
skirmishers. We advanced twenty-five paces apart, 
and each of us kept his eyes well opened, as may 
be imagined. Every minute Sergeant Pinto would 
cry out : 

“‘ Get under cover ! ” 


234 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 235 


But he did not need to warn us: each one hast- 
ened to take his post behind a stout tree, to recon- 
noitre well before proceeding to another. ‘To what 
dangers must peaceable people be exposed! We 
kept on in this manner some ten minutes, and, as we 
saw nothing, began to grow confident, when sud- 
denly, one, two, three shots rang out. Then they 
came from all sides, and rattled from end to end of 
our line. At the same instant I saw my comrade 
on the left fall, trying, as he sank to the earth, to 
support himself by the trunk of the tree behind 
which he was standing. Thisroused me. I looked 
to the right and saw, fifty or sixty paces off, an old 
Prussian soldier, with his long red mustaches cov- 
ering the lock of his piece ; he was aiming delib- 
erately at me. I fell at once to the ground, and at 
the same moment heard the report. It was a close 
escape, for the comb, brush, and handkerchief in my 
shako were broken and torn by the bullet. <A cold 
shiver ran through me. 

“ Well done ! amiss is as good asa mile ! ” cried 
the old sergeant, starting forward at a run, and I, 
who had no wish to remain longer in such a place, 
followed with right good-will. 

Lieutenant Bretonville, waving his sabre, cried, 
“ Forward !” while, to the right, the firing still 
continued. (We soon arrived at a clearing, where 


236 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


lay five or six trunks of felled trees, and a little lake 
full of high grass, but not a tree standing, that might 
serve usforacover. Nevertheless, five or six of our 
men advanced boldly, when the sergeant called out : 

“ Halt ! The Prussians are in ambush around us. 
Look sharp ! ” 

Scarcely had he spoken, when a dozen bullets 
whistled through the branches, and at the same time, 
a number of Prussians rose, and plunged deeper into 
the forest opposite. 

“There they go! Forward!” cried Pinto. 

But the bullet in my shako had rendered me 
cautious ; it seemed as if I could almost see through 
the trees, and, as the sergeant started forth into the 
clearing, I held his arm, pointing out to him the 
muzzle of a musket peeping out from a bush, not a 
hundred paces before us. The others, clustering 
around, saw it too, and Pinto whispered : 

“Stay, Bertha; remain here and do not lose 
sight of him, while we turn the position.” 

They set off, to the right and left, and I, behind 
my tree, my piece at my shoulder, waited like a 
hunter for his game. At the end of two or three 
minutes, the Prussian, hearing nothing, rose slowly. 
He was quite a boy, with little blonde mustaches, 
and a tall, slight, but well-knit figure. I could have 
killed him as he stood, but the thought of thus slay- 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 237 


ing a defenceless man froze my blood. Suddenly 
he saw me, and bounded aside. Then I fired, and 
breathed more freely as I saw him running, like a 

stag, toward the wood. 

At the same moment, five or six reports rang out 
to the right and left ; the sergeant Zébédé, Klipfel, 
and the rest appeared, and a hundred paces farther 
on we found the young Prussian upon the ground 
blood gushing from his mouth. He gazed at us- 
with a scared expression, raising his arms, as if to 
parry bayonet-thrusts, but the sergeant called glee- 
fully to him : 

“Fear nothing! Your account is settled.” 

No one offered to injure him further ; but Klip- 
fel took a beautiful pipe, which was hanging out of 
his pocket, saying : 

“For a long time I have wanted a pipe, and here 
is a fine one.” 

“Fusileer Klipfel !” cried Pinto, indignantly, 
“will you be good enough to put back that pipe? 
Leave it to the Cossacks to rob the wounded! A 
French soldier knows only honor ! ” 

Klipfel threw down the pipe and we departed, 
not one caring to look back at the wounded Prus- 
sian. We arrived at the edge of the forest, outside 
which, among tufted bushes, the Prussians we pur- 
sued had taken refuge. We saw them rise to fire 


238 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


upon us, but they immediately lay down again. We 
might have remained there tranquilly, since we had 
orders to occupy the wood, and the shots of the 
Prussians could not hurt us, protected as we were by 
the trees. On the other side of the slope we heard 
a terrific battle going on ; the thunder of cannon 
was increasing, it filled the air with one continuous 
roar. But our officers held a council, and decided 
that the bushes were a part of the forest, and that 
the Prussians must be driven from them. This de- 
termination cost many a life. 

We received orders, then, to drive the enemy’s 
tirailleurs, and as they fired as we came on, we start- 
ed at a run, so as to be upon them before they could 
reload. Our officers ran, also full of ardor. We 
thought the bushes ended at the top of the hill, and 
that we could sweep off the Prussians by dozens. 
But scarcely had we arrived, out of breath, upon the 
ridge, when old Pinto cried : 

“ Hussars |!” 

T looked up, and saw the Colbacks rushing down 
upon us like a tempest. Scarcely had I seen them, 
when I began to spring down the hill, going, I verily 
believe, in spite of weariness and my knapsack, fif- 
teen feet at a bound. I saw before me, Pinto, 
Zébédé, and the others, making their best speed. 
Behind, on came the hussars, their officers shouting 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 239 


orders in German, their scabbards clanking and 
horses neighing. The earth shook beneath them. 
I took the shortest road to the wood, and had al- 
most reached it, when I came upon one of the | 
trenches where the peasants were in the habit of 
digging clay for their houses. It was more than 
twenty feet wide, and forty or fifty long, and the 
rain had made the sides very slippery ; but as I 
heard the very breathing of the horses behind me, 
while my hair rose on my head, without thinking 
of aught else, I sprang forward, and fell upon my 
face : another fusileer of my company was already 
there. Werose as soon as we could, and at the same 
instant two hussars glided down the slippery side of 
the trench. The first, cursing like a fiend, aimed a 
sabre-stroke at my poor comrade’s head, but as he 
rose in his stirrups to give force to the blow I buried 
my bayonet in his side, while the other brought 
down his blade upon my shoulder with such force, 
that, were it not for my epaulette, I believe that I 
had been wellnigh cloven in two. Then he lunged, 
but as the point of his sabre touched my breast, a 
bullet from above crashed through his skull. I 
looked around, and saw one of our men, up to his 
knees in the clay. He had heard the oaths of the 
hussars and the neighing of the horses, and had come 
to the edge of the trench to see what was going on. 


240 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“Well, ee said he, laughing, “it was 
about time.” 

I had not Os to reply, but stood trem- 
bling like an aspen leaf. He unfixed his bayonet, 
and stretched the muzzle of his piece to me to help 
meout. Then I squeezed his hand, saying : 

“You saved my life! What is your name?” 

He told me that his name was Jean Pierre Vin- 
cent. I have often since thought that I should be 
only too happy to render that man any service in my 
power ; but two days after, the second battle of 
Leipzig took place ; then the retreat from Hanau 
began, and I never saw him again. 

Sergeant Pinto and Zébédé came up a moment 
after. Zébédé said : 

“We have escaped once more, Joseph, and now 
we are the only Phalsbourg men in the battalion, 
Klipfel was sabred by the hussars.” 

“ Did you see him?” I cried. 

“Yes ; he received over twenty wounds, and kept 
calling to me for aid.” Then, after a moment’s 
pause, he added, “ O Joseph ! it is terrible to hear 
the companion of your childhood calling for help, 
and not be able to give it! But they were too 
many. They surrounded him on all sides.” 

The thoughts of home rushed upon both our 
minds. I thought I could see grandmother Klipfel 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 241 


when she would learn the news, and this made me 
think too of Catharine. 

From the time of the charge of the hussars until 
night, the battalion remained in the same position, 
skirmishing with the Prussians. We kept them 
from occupying the wood ; but they prevented us 
from ascending to the ridge. The next day we 
knew why. The hill commanded the entire course 
of the Partha, and the fierce cannonade we heard 
came from Dombrowski’s division, which was attack- 
ing the Prussian left wing, in order to aid General 
Marmont at Mockern, where twenty thousand 
French, posted in a ravine, were holding eighty 
thousand of Bliicher’s troops in check; while toward 
Wachau a hundred and fifteen thousand French 
were engaged with two hundred thousand Austrians 
and Russians. More than fifteen hundred cannon 
were thundering at once. Our poor little fusillade 
was like the humming of a bee in a storm, and we 
sometimes ceased firing, on both sides, to listen. It 
seemed as if some supernatural, infernal battle 
were going on; the air was filled with smoke ; 
the earth trembled beneath our feet : our soldiers 
like Pinto declared they had never seen anything © 
like it. 

About six o’clock, a staff-officer brought orders 


to Colonel Lorain, and immediately after a retreat 
16 


242 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT — 


was sounded. The battalion had lost sixty 
men by the charge of Russian hussars and the 
musketry. 

It was night when we left the forest, and on the 
banks of the Partha—among caissons, wagons, re- 
treating divisions, ambulances filled with wounded, 
all defiling over the two bridges—we had to wait 
more than two hours for our turn to cross. The 
heavens were black ; the artillery still growled afar 
off, but the three battles were ended. We heard 
that we had beaten the Austrians and the Russians 
~ at Wachau, on the other side of Leipzig ; but our 
men returning from Mockern were downcast and 
gloomy ; not a voice cried Vive ?VEmpereur! as 
after a victory. 

Once on the other side of the river, the battalion | 
proceeded down the Partha a good half-league, as 
far as the village of Schoenfeld; the night was 
damp ; we marched along heavily, our muskets on 
our shoulders, our heads bent down, and our eyes 
closing for want of sleep. 

Behind us the great column of cannon, caissons, 
baggage-wagons and troops retreating from Mock- — 
ern filled the air with a hoarse murmur, and from 
time to time the cries of the artillerymen and team- 
sters, shouting to make room, arose above the tu- 
mult. But these noises insensibly grew less, and we 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 243 


at length reached a burial-ground, where we were 
ordered to stack arms and break ranks. 

By this time the sky had cleared, and I recognized 
* Scheenfeld in the moonlight. How often had I eat- 
en bread and drank white wine with Zimmer there 
at the Golden Sheaf, when the sun shone brightly 
and the leaves were green around! But those 
times had passed ! 

Sentries were posted, and a few men went 
to the village for wood and provisions. I sat 
against the cemetery wall, and at length fell 
asleep. About three o’clock in the morning, I was 
awoke. 

It was Zébédé. “Joseph,” said he, “come to 
the fire. If you remain here, you run the risk of 
catching the fever.” 

I arose, sick with fatigue and suffering. A fine 
rain filled the air. My comrade drew me toward 
the fire, which smoked in the drizzling atmosphere ; 
it seemed to give out no heat ; but Zébédé having 
made me drink a draught of brandy I felt at least 
less cold, and gazed at the bivouac fires on the other 
side of the Partha. 

“The Prussians are warming themselves in our 
wood,” said Zébédé. 

“Yes,” I replied ; “and poor Klipfel is there 
too, but he no longer feels the cold.” 


244 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


My teeth chattered. These words saddened us 
both. A few moments after Zébédé resumed : 

“Do you remember, Joseph, the black ribbon he 
wore the day of the conscription, and how he cried, 
‘we are all condemned to death, like those gone to 
Russia? I want a black ribbon. We must wear 
our own mourning!’ And his little brother said : 
“No, no, Jacob, I do not want it !’ and wept ! but 
Klipfel put on the black ribbon notwithstanding ; 
he saw the hussars in his dreams.” 

As Zébédé spoke, I recalled those things, and I 
saw too that wretch Pinacle on the Town Hall 
Square, calling me and shaking a black ribbon over 
his head : ‘‘ Ha, cripple ! you must have a fine rib- 
bon ; the ribbon of those who win !” 

This remembrance, together with the cold, which 
seemed to freeze the very marrow in our bones, made 
me shudder. I thought Pinacle was right ; that I 
had seen the last of home. I thought of Catharine, 
of Aunt Grédel, of good Monsieur Goulden, and I 
cursed those who had forced me from them. 

At daybreak, wagons arrived with food and 
brandy for us ; the rain had ceased ; we made soup, 
but nothing could warm me; I had caught the 
fever ; within I was cold while my body burned. I 
was not the only one in the battalion in that condi- 
tion ; three-fourths of the men were suffering from 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 245 


it: and, for a month before, those who could no 
longer march had lain down by the roadside weep- 
ing and calling upon their mothers like little chil- 
dren. Hunger, forced marches, the rain, and grief 
had done their work, and happy was it for the par- 
ents that they could not see their cherished sons per- 
ishing along the road ; it would be too fearful ; 
many would think there was no mercy in earth or 
heaven. 

As the light increased, we saw to the left, on the 
other side of the river—and of a great ravine filled 
with willows-and aspens—burnt villages, heaps of 
dead, abandoned wagons, broken caissons, dismount- 
ed cannon and ravaged fields stretched as far as the 
eye could reach on the Halle, Lindenthal and Dé- 
litch roads. It was worse than at Lutzen. Wesaw 
the Prussians deploy, and advance their thousands 
over the battle-field. They were to join with the 
Russians and Austrians and close the great circle 
around us, and we could not prevent them, espe- 
cially as Bernadotte and the Russian General Ben- 
ingsen had come up with twenty thousand fresh 
troops. Thus, after fighting three battles in one 
day, were we, only one hundred and thirty thousand 
strong, seemingly about to be entrapped in the midst 
of three hundred thousand bayonets, not to speak of 
fifty thousand horse and twelve hundred cannon. 


246 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


From Scheenfeld, the battalion started to rejoin 
the division at Kohlgarten. All the roads were 
lined with slow-moving ambulances, filled with 
wounded ; all the wagons of the country around had 
been impressed for this service ; and, in the inter- 
vals between them, marched hundreds of poor fel- 
lows with their arms in slings, or their heads ban- 
daged—-pale, crestfallen, half dead. All who could 
drag themselves along kept out of the ambulances, 
but tried nevertheless to reach a hospital. We made 
our way, with a thousand difficulties, through this 
mass, when, near Kohlgarten, twenty hussars, gal- 
loping at full speed, and with levelled pistols, drove 
back the crowd, right and left, into the fields, shout- 
ing, as they pressed on : 

“The Emperor! the Emperor ! ” 

The battalion drew up, and presented arms ; and 
a few moments after, the mounted grenadiers of the 
guard—-veritable giants, with their great boots, their 
immense bear-skin hats, descending to their shoul- 
ders and only allowing their mustaches, nose, and 
eyes to remain visible—passed at a gallop. Our 
men looked joyfully at them, glad Wee such robust 
warriors were on our side. 

Scarcely had they passed, when the staff tore af- 
ter. Imagine a hundred and fifty to two hundred 
marshals, generals, and other superior officers, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 247 


mounted on magnificent steeds, and so covered with 
embroidery that the color of their uniforms was 
scarcely visible ; some tall, thin, and haughty ; 
others short, thick-set, and red-faced ; others again 
young and handsome, sitting like statues in their 
saddles ; all with eager look and flashing eyes. It 
was a magnificent and terrible sight. 

But the most striking figure among those cap- 
tains, who for twenty years had made Europe trem- 
ble, was Napoleon himself, with his old hat and 
gray overcoat ; his large, determined chin and neck 
buried between his shoulders. All shouted “ Vive 
VEmpereur!” but he heard nothing of it. He 
paid no more attention to us than to the drizzling 
rain which filled the air, but gazed with contracted 
brows at the Prussian army stretching along the 
Partha to join the Austrians. So I saw him on that 
day and so he remains in my memory. ‘The bat- 
talion had been on the march for a quarter of an 
hour, when at length Zébédé said : 

“Did you see him, Joseph?” 

“T did,” I replied; “I saw him well, and I will 
remember the sight all my life.” 

“ Tt is strange,” said my comrade; “ he does not 
seem to be pleased. At Wurschen, the day after 
the battle, he seemed rejoiced to hear our ‘ Vive 
Vv Empereur !’ and the generals all wore merry faces 


248 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


too. ‘To-day they seem savage, and nevertheless 
the captain said that we bore off the victory on the 
other side of Leipzig.” 

Others thought the same thing without speaking 
of it, but there was a growing uneasiness among all. 

We found the regiment bivouacked near Kohl- 
garten. In every direction camp-fires were rolling 
their smoke to the sky. <A drizzling rain continued 
to fall} and the men, seated on their knapsacks 
around the fires, seemed depressed and gloomy. 
The officers formed groups of their own. On all 
sides it was whispered that such a war had never 
before been seen; it was one of extermination; that 
it did not help us to defeat the enemy, for they only 
desired to kill us off, knowing that they had four 
or five times our number of men, and would finally 
remain masters. 

They said, too, that the Emperor had won the 
battle at Wachau, against the Austrians and Rus- 
sians; but that the victory was useless, because they 
did not retreat, but stood awaiting masses of rein- 
forcements. On the side of Mockern we knew that 
we had lost, in spite of Marmont’s splendid defence; 
the enemy had crushed us beneath the weight of 
their numbers. We only had one real advantage 
that day on our side; that was keeping our line 
of retreat on Erfurt: for Giulay had not been able 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 249 


to seize the bridges of the Elster and Pleisse. All 
the army, from the simple soldier to the marshal, 
thought that we would have to retreat as soon as 
possible, and that our position was of the worst; 
unfortunately the Emperor thought otherwise, and 
we had to remain. 

All day on the seventeenth we lay in our posi- 
tion without firing a shot. A few spoke of the ar- 
rival of General Regnier with sixteen thousand 
Saxons; but the defection of the Bavarians taught 
us what confidence we could put in our allies. 

Toward evening of the next day, we discovered 
the army of the north on the plateau of Breiten- 
feld. This was sixty thousand more men for the 
enemy. I can yet hear the maledictions levelled 
at Bernadotte—the cries of indignation of those 
who knew him as a simple officer in the army of 
the Republic, who cried out that he owed us all 
—that we made him a king with our blood, and 
that he now came to give us the finishing blow. 

That night, a general movement rearward was 
made; our lines drew closer and closer around Leip- 
zig; then all became quiet. But this did not pre- 
vent our reflecting; on the contrary, every one 
thought, in the silence: 

“ What will to-morrow bring forth? Shall I at 
this hour see the moon rising among the clouds as 


250 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


I now see her? Will the stars yet shine for me 
to see?” | 

And when, in the dim night, we gazed at the 
circle of fire which for nearly six leagues stretched 
around us, we cried within ourselves: 

“Now indeed the world is against us; all na- 
tions demand our extermination; they want no 
more of our glory! ” 

. But we remembered that we had the honor of 
bearing the name of Frenchmen, and must conquer 
or die. 


XIX 


In the midst of such thoughts, day broke. Noth- 
ing was stirring yet, and Zébédé said: 

‘What a chance for us, if the enemy should fear 
to attack us!” 

The officers spoke of an armistice; but suddenly 
about nine o’clock, our couriers came galloping in, 
crying that the enemy was moving his whole line 
down upon us, and directly after we heard cannon 
on our right, along the Elster. We were already 
under arms, and set out across the fields toward the 
Partha to return to Schenfeld. The battle had 
begun. 

On the hills overlooking the river, two or three 
divisions, with batteries in the intervals, and cannon 
at the flanks, awaited the enemy’s approach; _be- 
yond, over the points of their bayonets, we could 
see the Prussians, the Swedes, and the Russians, 
advancing on all sides in.deep, never-ending masses. 
Shortly after, we took our place in line, between 
two hills, and then we saw five or six thousand Prus- 


sians crossing the river, and all together shouting, 
251 


252 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


“ Vaterland! Vaterland!” This caused a tre- 
mendous tumult, like that of clouds of rooks flying 
north. 

At the same instant the musketry opened from 
both sides of the river. The valley through which 
the Partha flows was filled with smoke; the Prus- 
sians were already upon us—we could see their 
furious eyes and wild looks; they seemed like sav- 
age beasts rushing down on us. Then but one 
shout of “ Vive ?Empereur!” smote the sky and 
we dashed forward. The shock was terrible; thou- 
sands of bayonets crossed; we drove them back, 
were ourselves driven back; muskets were clubbed; 
the opposing ranks were confounded and mingled 
in one mass; the fallen were trampled upon, while 
the thunder of artillery, the whistling of bullets, and 
the thick white smoke enclosing all, made the valley 
seem the pit of hell, peopled by contending demons. 

Despair urged us, and the wish to revenge our 
deaths before yielding up our lives. The pride of 
boasting that they once defeated Napoleon incited 
the Prussians; for they are the proudest of men, 
and their victories at Gross-Beeren and Katzbach 
had made them fools. But the river swept away 
them and their pride! Three times they crossed and 
rushed at us. We were indeed forced back by the 
shock of their numbers, and how they shouted then! 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 253 


They seemed to wish to devour us. Their officers, 
waving their swords in the air, cried, “ Vorwartz! 
Vorwartz!” and all advanced like a wall, with the 
greatest courage—that we cannot deny. Our can- 
non opened huge gaps in their lines; still they 
pressed on; but at the top of the hill we charged 
again, and drove them to the river. We would 
have massacred them to a man, were it not for one 
of their batteries before Mockern, which enfiladed 
us and forced us to give up the pursuit. 

This lasted until two o’clock; half our officers 
were killed or wounded ; the colonel, Lorain, was 
among the first, and the commandant, Gémeau, 
the latter; all along the river side were heaps of 
dead, or wounded men crawling away from the 
struggle. Some, furious, would rise to their knees 
to fire a last shot or deliver a final bayonet-thrust. 
Never was anything seen like it. In the river floated 
long lines of corpses, some showing their faces, 
others their backs, others their feet. They followed 
each other like rafts of wood, and no one paid the 
least attention to the sight—no one of us knew that 
the same might not be his condition at any minute. 

The carnage reached from Schcenfeld to Gross- 
dorf, along the Partha. 

At length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their 
attacks, and started farther up the river to turn our 


254 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


position, and masses of Russians came to occupy the 
places they had left. | 

The Russians formed in two columns, and de- 
scended to the valley, with shouldered arms, in ad- 
mirable order. ‘Twice they assailed us with the 
greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts’ 
cries, like the Prussians. Their cavalry attempted 
to carry the old bridge above Scheenfeld, and the 
cannonade increased. On all sides, as far as eye 
could reach, we saw only the enemy massing their 
forces, and when we had repulsed one of their col- 
umns, another of fresh men took its place. The 
fight had ever to be fought over again. 

Between two and three o’clock, we learned that 
the Swedes and the Prussian cavalry had crossed 
the river above Grossdorf, and were about to take 
us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much 
better than fighting face to face. Marshal Ney im- 
mediately changed front, throwing his right wing 
to the rear. Our division still remained supported 
on Scheenfeld, but all the others retired from the 
Partha, to stretch along the plain, and the entire 
army formed but one line around Leipzig. 

The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, pre- 
pared for a third attack toward three o’clock; our 
officers were making new dispositions to receive 
them; when a sort of shudder ran from one end of 





IN THE RIVER THE DEAD WERE FLOATING BY IN FILES, 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 255 


our lines to the other, and in a few moments all 
knew that the sixteen thousand Saxons and the 
Wurtemberg cavalry, in our very centre, had passed 
over to the enemy, and that on their way they had 
the infamy to turn the forty guns they carried with 
them, on their old brothers-in-arms of Durutte’s di- 
vision. 

This treason, instead of discouraging us, so added 
to our fury, that if we had been allowed, we would 
have crossed the river to massacre them. They say 
that they were defending their country. It is false! 
They had only to have left us on the Duben road; 
why did they not go then? They might have done 
like the Bavarians and quitted us before the battle; 
they might have remained neutral—might have re- 
fused to serve; but they deserted us only because 
fortune was against us. If they knew we were 
going to win, they would have continued our very 
good friends, so that they might have their share 
of the spoil or glory—as after Jena and Friedland. 
This is what every one thought, and it is why those 
Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors: not only 
did they abandon their friends in distress, but they 
murdered them, to make a welcome with the enemy. 
God is just. And so great was their new allies’ 
scorn of them, that they divided half Saxony be- 
tween themselves after the battle. The French 


256 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


might well laugh at Prussian, Austrian, and Rus- 
sian gratitude. . 

From the time of this desertion until evening, it 
was a war of vengeance that we carried on; the 
allies might crush us by numbers, but they should 
pay dearly for their victory! 

At nightfall, while two thousand pieces of artil- 
lery were thundering together, we were attacked 
for the seventh time in Scheenfeld. The Russians 
on one side and the Prussians on the other poured 
in upon us. We defended every house. In every 
lane the walls crumbled beneath the bullets, and 
roofs fell in on every side. There were now no 
shouts. as at the beginning of the battle; all were | 
cool and pale with rage. The officers had collected 
scattered muskets and cartridge-boxes, and ‘now 
loaded and fired like the men. We defended the 
gardens, too, and the cemetery, where we had 
bivouacked, until there were more dead above than 
beneath the soil. Every inch of earth cost a life. 

It was night when Marshal Ney brought up a 
reinforcement—whence I knew not. It was what 
remained of Ricard’s division arid Souham’s Sec- 
ond. The débris of our regiments united, and . 
hurled the Russians to the other side of the old 
bridge, which no longer had a rail, that having been 
swept away by the shot. Six twelve-pounders were 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 257 


posted on the bridge and maintained a fire for one 
hour longer. The remainder of the battalion, and 
of some others in our rear, supported the guns; and 
I remember how their flashes lit up the forms of 
men and horses, heaped beneath the dark arches. 
The sight lasted only a moment, but it was a hor- 
rible moment indeed! 

At half-past seven, masses of cavalry advanced 
on our left, and we saw them whirling about two 
large squares, which slowly retired. Then we re- 
ceived orders to retreat. Not more than two or 
three thousand men remained at Schenfeld with 
the six pieces of artillery. We reached Kohlgarten 
without being pursued, and were to bivouac around 
Rendnitz. Zébédé was yet living, and, as we 
marched on, listening to the cannonade, which con- 
tinued, despite the darkness, along the Elster, he 
said, suddenly: 

“ How is it that we are here, Joseph, when so 
many thousand others that stood by our side are 
dead? It seems as if we bore charmed lives, and 
could not die.” 

I made no reply. 

“Think you there was ever before such a bat 
tle?” he asked. “ No, it cannot be. It is impos- 
sible.” 

Ii was indeed a battle of giants. From ten in 

17 


258 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


the morning until seven in the evening, we had held 
our own against three hundred and sixty thousand 
men, without, at night, having lost an inch: and, 
nevertheless, we were but a hundred and thirty 
thousand. God keep me from speaking ill of the 
Germans. They were fighting for the independence 
of their country. But they might do better than 
celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig 
every year. There is not much to boast of in fight- 
ing an enemy three to one. 

Approaching Rendnitz, we marched over heaps 
of dead. At every step we encountered dismounted 
cannon, broken caissons, and trees cut down by shot. 
There a division of the Young Guard and the 
mounted grenadiers, led by Napoleon himself, had 
repulsed the Swedes who were advancing into the 
breach made by the treachery of the Saxons. Two 
or three burning houses lit up the scene. The — 
mounted grenadiers were yet at Rendnitz, but 
crowds of disbanded troops were passing up and 
down the street. No rations had been distributed, 
and all were seeking something to eat and drink. 

As we defiled by a large house, we saw behind 
the wall of a court twocantiniéres, who were giv- 
ing the soldiers drink from their wagons. There 
were there chasseurs, cuirassiers, lancers, hussars, 
infantry of the line and of the guard, all mingled 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 259 


together, with torn uniforms, broken shakos, and 
plumeless helmets, and all seemingly famished. 

Two or three dragoons stood on the wall near 
a pot of burning pitch, their arms crossed on their 
long white cloaks, covered from head to foot with 
blood, like butchers. 

Zébédé, without speaking, pushed me with his 
- elbow, and we entered the court, while the others 
pursued their way. It took us full a quarter of an 
hour to reach one of the wagons. I held up a crown 
of six livres, and the cantiniére, kneeling behind 
her cask, handed me a large glass of brandy and 
a piece of white bread, at the same time taking my 
money. I drank and passed the glass to Zébédé, 
who emptied it. We had as much difficulty in get- 
ting out of_the crowd as in entering. Hard, fam- 
ished faces and cavernous eyes were on all sides of 
us. No one moved willingly. Each thought only 
of himself, and cared not for his neighbor. They 
had escaped a thousand deaths to-day only to dare 
a thousand more to-morrow. Well might they mut- 
ter, “ Every one for himself, and God for us all.” 

As we went through the village street, Zébédé 
said, “‘ You have bread?” 

“ Yes.” 

I broke it in two, and gave him half. We be- 
gan to eat, at the same time hastening on. We 


260 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


heard distant firing. At the end of twenty min- 
utes we had overtaken the rear of the column, and 
recognized the battalion of Captain Adjutant-Major 
Vidal, who was marching near it. We had taken 
our places in the ranks before any one noticed our 
absence. 

The nearer we approached the city the more de- 
tachments, cannon and baggage we encountered 
hastening to Leipzig. 

Toward ten o’clock we passed through the fau- 
bourg of Rendnitz. The general of brigade, Four- 
nier, took command of us and ordered us to oblique 
to the left. At midnight we arrived at the long 
promenades which border the Pleisse, and halted 
under the old leafless lindens, and stacked arms. 
A long line of fires flickered in the fog as far as 
Randstadt; and, when the flames burnt high, they 
threw a glare on groups of Polish lancers, lines of 
horses, cannon, and wagons, while, at intervals be- 
yond, sentinels stood like statues in the mist. A 
heavy, hollow sound arose from the city, and min- 
gled with the rolling of our trains over the bridge 
at Lindenau. It was the beginning of the retreat. 

Then every one put his knapsack at the foot of 
a tree and stretched himself on the ground, his arm 
under his head. A quarter of an hour after all were 
sleeping. 


xx 


Wnuart occurred until daybreak I know not. Bag- 
gage, wounded, and prisoners doubtless continued 
to crowd across the bridge. But then a terrific 
shock woke us all. We started up, thinking the 
enemy were upon us, when two officers of hussars 
came galloping in with the news that a powder 
wagon had exploded by accident in the grand ave- 
nue of Randstadt, at the river-side. The dark, red 
smoke rolled up to the sky, and slowly disappeared, 
while the old houses continued to shake as if an 
earthquake were rolling by. 

Quiet was soon restored. Some lay down to 
sleep: but it was growing lighter every minute; 
and, glancing toward the river, I saw our troops 
extending until lost in the distance along the five 
bridges of the Elster and Pleisse, which follow, one 
after another, and make, so to speak, but one. Thou- 
sands of men must defile over this bridge, and, of 
necessity, take time in doing so. And the idea 
struck every one that it would have been much 


better to have thrown several bridges across the 
261 


262 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


two rivers; for at any instant the enemy might at- 
tack us, and then retreat would have become diffi- 
cult indeed. But the Emperor had forgotten to 
give the order, and no one dared do anything with- 
out orders. Not a marshal of France would have 
dared to take it upon himself to say that two bridges 
were better than one. To such a point had the ter- 
rible discipline of Napoleon reduced those old cap- 
tains! They obeyed like machines, and disturbed 
themselves about nothing. Such was their fear of 
displeasing their master. 

As I gazed at that bridge, which seemed endless, 
I thought, “ Heaven grant that they may let us 
cross now, for we have had enough of battles and 
carnage! Once on the other side and we are on the 
road to France, indeed, and I may again see Cath- 
arine, Aunt Grédel, and Father Goulden!” So 
thinking, I grew sad; I gazed at the thousands of 
artillerymen and baggage-guards swarming over the 
bridge, and saw the tall bear-skin shakos of the Old 
Guard, who stood with shouldered arms immovable 
‘ on the hill of Lindenau on the other side of the river 
—and as I thought they were fairly on their way 
to France, how I longed to be in their place! Zé- 
bédé, through whose mind the same thoughts were 
running, said: 

“Hey! Joseph; if we were only there! ” 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 263 


But I felt bitterly, indeed, when, about seven 
o'clock, three wagons came to distribute provisions 
and ammunition among us, and it became evident 
that we were to become the rear-guard. In spite 
of my hunger, I felt like throwing my bread against 
a wall. A few moments after, two squadrons of 
Polish lancers appeared coming up the bank, and 
behind them five or six generals, Poniatowski among 
the number. He was a man of about fifty, tall, 
slight, and with a melancholy expression. He passed 
without looking at us. General Fournier, who now 
commanded our brigade, spurred from among his 
staff, and cried: 

“ By file, left! ” 

I never so felt my heart sink. I would have sold 
my life for two farthings; but nevertheless, we had 
to move on, and turn our backs to the bridge. 

We soon arrived at a place called Hinterthor— 
an old gate on the road to Caunewitz. To the right 
and left stretched ancient ramparts, and behind,’ 
rows of houses. We were posted in covered roads, 
near this gate, which the sappers had strongly bar- 
ricaded. Captain Vidal then commanded the bat- 
talion, reduced to three hundred and twenty-five 
men. A few worm-eaten palisades served us for in- 
trenchments, and, on all the roads before us, the 
enemy were advancing. This time they wore white 


264 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


coats and flat caps, with a raised piece in front, on 
which we could see the two-headed eagle of the 
kreutzers. Old Pinto, who recognized them at 
once, cried: . 

“Those fellows are the kaiserliks! We have 
beaten them fifty times since 1793; but if the 
father of Marie Louise had a heart, they would be 
with us now instead of against us.” 

For some moments a cannonade had been going 
on at the other side of the city, where Bliicher was 
attacking the faubourg of Halle. 

Soon after, the firing stretched along to the right; 
it was Bernadotte attacking the faubourg of Kohl- 
gartenthor, and at the same time the first shells 
of the Austrians fell in our covered ways; they 
followed in file; many passing over Hinterthor, 
burst in the houses and the streets of the faubourg. 

At nine o’clock the Austrians formed their col- 
umns of attack on the Caunewitz road, and poured 
down on us from all sides. Nevertheless we held 
our own until about ten o’clock, and then were 
forced back to the old ramparts, through the 
breaches of which the Kaiserliks pursued us under 
the cross-fire of the Fourteenth and Twenty-ninth 
of the line. The poor Austrians were not inspired 
with the fury of the Prussians, but nevertheless, 
showed a true courage; for, at half-past ten they 


THE STORY- OF A CONSCRIPT 265 


had won the ramparts, and although, from all the 
neighboring windows, we kept up a deadly fire, 
we could not force them back. Six months before 
it would have horrified me to think of men being 
thus slaughtered, but now I was as insensible as 
any old soldier, and the death of one man or of a 
hundred would not cost me a thought. 

Until this time all had gone well, but how were 
we to get out of the houses? Unless we climbed 
on the roof, retreat was no longer possible. This 
again was one of those terrible moments I shall 
never forget. All at once the idea struck me that 
we should be caught like foxes which they smoke 
in their holes. The enemy held every avenue. I 
went to a window in the rear, and saw that it looked 
out on a yard, and that the yard had no gate except 
in front. I thought it not unlikely that the Aus- 
trians, in revenge for the loss we had inflicted upon 
them, might put us to the point of the bayonet. It 
would have been natural enough. Thinking thus, 
I ran back to a room, where a dozen of us yet re- 
mained, and there I saw Sergeant Pinto leaning 
against the wall, his arms hanging by his sides, and 
his face as white as paper. He had just received a 
bullet in the breast, but the old man’s warrior soul 
was still strong within him, as he cried: 

“ Defend yourselves, conscripts! Defend your- 


266. THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


selves! Show the Kaiserliks that a French soldier 
is yet worth four of them! ah the villains! ” 

We heard the sound of blows on the door below 
thundering like cannon-shot. We still kept up our 
fire, but hopelessly, when we heard the clatter of 
hoofs without. The firing ceased, and we saw 
through the smoke four squadrons of lancers dash- 
ing like a troop of lions through the midst of the 
Austrians. All yielded before them. The Kaiser- 
liks fled, but the long, blue lances, with their red 
pennons, were swifter than they, and many a white 
coat was pierced from behind. The lancers were 
Poles—the most terrible warriors I have ever seen, 
and, to speak truth, our friends, and our brothers. 
They never turned from us in our hour of need; 
they gave us the last drop of their blood. And 
what have we done for their unhappy country? 
When I think of our ingratitude, my heart bleeds. 

The Poles rescued us. Seeing them so proud 
and brave, we rushed out, attacking the Austrians 
with the bayonet, and driving them into the 
trenches. We were for the time victorious, but 
it was time to beat a retreat, for the enemy were 
already filling Leipzig; the gates of Halle and 
Grimma were forced, and that of Peters-Thau de- 
livered up by our friends the Badeners and our 
other friends the Saxons. Soldiers, citizens, and 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 267 


students kept up a fire from the windows, on our 
retiring troops. 

We had only time to re-form and take the road 
along the Pleisse; the lancers awaited us there: 
we defiled behind them, and, as the Austrians again 
pressed around us, they charged once more to drive 
them back. What brave fellows and magnificent 
horsemen were those Poles! How those who saw 
them charge—in such a moment—must admire 
them! 

The division, reduced from fifteen to eight thou- 
sand men, retired step by step before fifty thousand 
foes, and not without often turning and replying 
to the Austrian fire. 

We neared the bridge—with what joy, I need 
not say. But it was no easy task to reach it, for 
infantry and horse crowded the whole width of the 
avenue, and continued to come from all the neigh- 
boring roads, until the crowd formed an impene- 
trable mass, which advanced slowly, with groans 
and smothered cries, which might be heard at a 
distance of half a mile, despite the rattling of mus- 
ketry. Woe to those upon the sides of the bridge! 
they were forced into the water and no one stretched 
a hand to save them. In the middle, men and eyen 
horses were carried along with the crowd; they had 

no need of making any exertion of their own. But. 


268 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


how were we to get there? The enemy were ad- 
vancing nearer and nearer every moment. It is 
true we had stationed a few cannon so as to sweep 
the principal approaches, and some troops yet re- 
mained in line to repulse their attacks, but they 
had guns to sweep the bridge, and those who re- 
mained behind must receive their whole fire. This 
accounted for the press on the bridge. 

At two or three hundred paces from the bridge, 
the idea of rushing forward and throwing myself 
into the midst of the crowd, entered my mind; but 
Captain Vidal, Lieutenant Bretonville, and other 
old officers said: 

“Shoot down the first man that leaves the 
ranks! ” 

It was horrible to be so near safety, and yet un- 
able to escape. 

This was between eleven and twelve o’clock. The 
fusillade grew nearer on the right and left, and a 
few bullets began to whistle over our heads. From 
the side of Halle we saw the Prussians rush pell- 
mell out with our own soldiers. Terrible cries 
now arose from the bridge. Cavalry, to make way 
for themselves, sabred the infantry, who replied 
with the bayonet. It was a general sauve qui 
peut. At every movement of the crowd, some 
one fell from the bridge, and, trying to regain 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 269 


his place, dragged five or six with him into the 
water. 

In the midst of this horrible confusion, this pan- 
demonium of shouts, cries, groans, musket-shots, 
and sabre-strokes, a crash like a peal of thunder was 
heard, and the first arch of the bridge rose upward 
into the air with all upon it. 

Hundreds of wretches were torn to pieces, and 
hundreds of others were crushed beneath the fall- 
ing ruins. 

A sapper had blown up the arch! 

At this sight, the ery of treason rang from mouth 
to mouth. “ We are lost—betrayed! ” was now 
the cry on allsides. The tumult was fearful. Some, 
in the rage of despair, turned upon the enemy like 
wild beasts at bay, thinking only of vengeance ; 
others broke their arms, cursing heaven and earth 
for their misfortunes. Mounted officers and gen- 
erals dashed into the river to cross it by swimming, 
and many soldiers followed them without taking 
time to throw off their knapsacks. The thought 
that the last hope of safety was gone, and nothing 
now remained but to be massacred, made men mad. 
I had seen the Partha choked with dead bodies the 
day before, but this scene was a thousand times more 
horrible; drowning wretches dragging down those 
who happened to be near them; shrieks and yells 


270 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


of rage, or for help; a broad river concealed by 
a mass of heads and struggling arms. 

Captain Vidal, who, by his coolness and steady 
eye, had hitherto kept us to our duty, even Captain 
Vidal now appeared discouraged. He thrust his 
sabre into the scabbard, and cried, with a strange 
laugh: 

“The game is up! Let us be gone! ” 

I touched his arm; he looked sadly and kindly 
at me. 

“What do you wish, my child?” he asked. 

“ Captain,” said I, “I was four months in the 
hospital at Leipzig: I have bathed in the Elster, 
and I know a ford.” 

“ Where? ” 

“Ten minutes’ march above the bridge.” 

He drew his sabre at once from its sheath, and 
shouted: 

“ Follow me, my boys, and you, Bertha, lead.” 

The entire battalion, which did not now num- 
ber more than two hundred men, followed; a hun- 
dred others, who saw us start confidently forward, 
joined us without knowing where we were going. 
The Austrians were already on the terrace of the 
avenue ; farther down, gardens, separated by 
hedges, stretched to the Elster. I recognized the 
road which Zimmer and I had traversed so often 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 271 


in July, when the ground was covered with flowers. 
The enemy fired on us, but we did not reply. I 
entered the water first; Captain Vidal next, then 
the others, two abreast. It reached our shoulders, 
for the river was swollen by the autumn rains; but 
we crossed, notwithstanding, without the loss of a 
man. Nearly all of us had our muskets when we 
reached the other bank, and we pressed onward 
across the fields, and soon reached the little wooden 
bridge at Schleissig, and thence turned to Lin- 
denau. 

We marched silently, turning from time to time 
to gaze on the other side of the Elster, where the 
battle still raged in the streets of Leipzig. The 
furious shouts, and the deep boom of cannon still 
reached our ears; and it was only when, about two 
o'clock, we overtook the long column which 
stretched, till lost inthe distance, on the road to 
Erfurt, that the sounds of conflict were lost in the 
roll of wagons and artillery trains. 


XXI 


Hiruerto I have described the grandeur of war 
—battles glorious to France, notwithstanding our 
mistakes and misfortunes. When we were fighting 
all Europe alone, always one against two, and often 
one to three; when we finally succumbed, not 
through the courage of our foes, but borne down 
by treason, and the weight of numbers, we had no 
reason to blush for our defeat, and the victors have 
little reason to exult in it. It is not numbers that 
makes the glory of a people or an army—it is virtue 
and bravery. This is what I think in all sincerity, 
and I believe that right feeling, sensible men in 
every country will think the same. 

But now I must relate the horrors of ‘retreat, 
and this is the hardest part of my task. It is said 
that confidence gives strength, and this is especially 
true of the French. While they advanced in full 
hope of victory, they were united; the will of their 
chiefs was their only law; they knew that they 
could succeed only by strict observance of discipline. 


But when driven back, no one had confidence save 
272 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 273 


in himself, and commands were forgotten. Then 
these men—once so brave and so proud, who 
marched so gayly to the fight—scattered to right 
and left; sometimes fleeing alone, sometimes in 
groups. Then those who, a little while before, 
trembled at their approach, grew bold; they came 
on, first timidly, but, meeting no resistance, became 
insolent. Then they would swoop down and carry 
off three or four laggards at a time, as I have seen 
crows in winter swoop upon a fallen horse, which 
they did not dare approach while he could yet re- 
main on his feet. 

I have seen miserable Cossacks—very beggars, 
with nothing but old rags hanging around them; 
an old cap of tattered skin over their ears; unshorn 
beards, covered with vermin; mounted on old worn- 
out horses, without saddles, and with only a piece 
of rope by way of stirrups, an old rusty pistol all 
their fire-arms, and a nail at the end of a pole for 
a lance ; I have seen those wretches, who resembled 
sallow and decrepit Jews more than soldiers, stop 
ten, fifteen, twenty of our men, and lead them off 
like sheep. 

And the tall, lank peasants, who, a few months 
before, trembled if we only looked at them—I have 
seen them arrogantly repulse old soldiers—cui- 


rassiers, artillerymen, dragoons who had fought 
18 


274 ‘THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


through the Spanish war, men who could have 
crushed them with a blow of their fist; I have seen 
these peasants insist that they had no bread to sell, 
while the odor of the oven arose on all sides of us; 
that they had no wine, no beer, when we heard 
glasses clinking to right and left. And no one dared 
punish them; no one dared take what he wanted 
from the wretches who laughed to see us in such 
straits, for each one was retreating on his own ac- 
count; we had no leaders, no discipline, and they 
could easily out-number us. 

And to hunger, misery, weariness, and fever, the 
horrors of an approaching winter were added. The 
rain never ceased falling from the gray sky, and 
the winds pierced us to the bones. How could poor 
beardless conscripts, mere shadows, fleshless and 
worn out, endure all this?’ They perished by thou- 
sands; their bodies covered the roads. The terrible 
typhus pursued us. Some said it was a plague, en- 
gendered by the dead not being buried deep enough; 
others, that it was the consequence of sufferings 
that required more than human strength to bear. 
I know not how this may be, but the villages of 
Alsace and Lorraine, to which we brought it, will 
long remember their sufferings; of a hundred at- 
tacked by it, not more than ten or twelve, at the 
most, recovered. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 275 


At length—since I must continue this sad story 
-——on the evening of the nineteenth, we bivouacked 
at Lutzen, where our regiments re-formed as best 
they might. The next day early, as we marched on 
Weissenfels, we had to skirmish with the West- 
phalians, who followed us as far as the village of 
Eglaystadt. The twenty-second we bivouacked on 
the glacis at Erfurt, where we received new shoes 
and uniforms. Five or six disbanded companies 
joined our battalion—nearly all conscripts. Our 
new coats and shoes were much too large for us; 
but they were warm; we felt like new men. 

We had to start again the twenty-second, and 
the following days passed near Gétha, Teitlobe, 
Eisenach and Salminster. The Cossacks recon- 
noitred us from a distance. Our hussars would 
drive them off; but they returned the moment pur- 
suit was relaxed. Many of our men went pillaging 
in the night, and were absent at roll-call, and the 
sentries received orders to shoot all who attempted 
to leave their bivouacs. 

I had had the fever ever since we left Leipzig; 
it increased day by day, and I became so weak that 
I could scarcely rise in the mornings to follow the 
march. Zébédé looked sadly at me, and sometimes 
said: , 

“ Courage, Joseph! We will soon be at home! ” 


‘ 


276 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


These words reanimated me; I felt my face flush. 

“Yes, yes!” I said; “we will soon be home; 
I must see home once more! ” 

The tears forced themselves to my eyes. Zébédé 
carried‘ , knapsack when I was tired, and con- 
tinued: 

-“Teanonmyarm. We are getting nearer every 
day, now, Joseph. A few dozen leagues are noth- 
ing.” 

My heart beat more bravely, but my strength 
was gone. I could no longer carry my musket; it 
was heavy as lead. I could not eat; my knees 
trembled beneath me; still I did not despair, but 
kept murmuring to myself: “ This is nothing. 
When you see the clock-tower of Phalsbourg your 
fever will leave you. You will have good air, and 
Catharine will nurse you. All will yet be well!” 

Others, no worse than I, fell by the roadside, 
but still I toiled on; when near Folde, we learned 
that fifty thousand Bavarians were posted in the 
forests through which we were to pass, for the pur- 
pose of cutting off our retreat. This was my fin- 
ishing stroke, for I knew I could no longer load, 
fire, or defend myself with the bayonet. I felt that 
all my sufferings to get so far toward home were 
useless. Nevertheless, I made an effort, when we 
were ordered to march, and tried to rise, 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 277 


“Come, come, Joseph!” said Zébédé; “ cour- 
age!” 

But I could not move, and lay sobbing like a 
child. : 

“ Come, stand up! ” he said. 

“T cannot. O God! I cannot!” 

I clutched his arm. Tears streamed down his 
face. He tried to lift me, but he was too weak; I 
held fast to him, crying: _ 

“ Zébédé, do not abandon me 

Captain Vidal approached, and gazed sadly on 
me. 

“Cheer up, my lad,” said he; “ the ambulances 
will be along in half an hour.” 

But I knew what that meant, and I drew Zébédé 
closer to me. He embraced me, and I whispered 


{| ?? 


in his ear: 

“Kiss Catharine for me—promise! Tell her 
that I died thinking of her, and bear her my last 
farewell! ” 3 

“Yes, yes!” hesobbed. “ My poor Joseph ! ” 

I could cling to him no longer. He placed me 
on the ground, and ran away without turning his 
head. The column departed, and I gazed at it as 
one who sees his last hope fading from his eyes. 
The last of the battalion disappeared over the ridge 
of a hill. I closed my eyes. An hour passed, or 


278 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


perhaps a longer time, when the boom of cannon 
startled me, and I saw a division of the guard pass 
at a quick step with artillery and wagons. Seeing 
some sick in the wagons, I cried, wistfully: 

“Take me! Take me! ” 

But no one listened; still they kept on, while 
the thunder of artillery grew louder and louder. 
More than ten thousand men, cavalry and infantry, 
passed me, but I had no longer strength to call out 
to them. 

At last the long line ended; I saw knapsacks and 
shakos disappear behind the hill, and I lay down 
to sleep forever, when once more I was aroused by 
the rolling of five or six pieces of artillery along the 
road. The cannoneers sat sabre in hand, and be- 
hind came the caissons. I hoped no more from 
these than from the others, when suddenly I per- 
ceived a tall, lean, red-bearded veteran mounted be- 
side one of the pieces, and bearing the cross upon 
his breast. It was my old friend Zimmer, my old 
comrade of Leipzig. He was passing without see- 
ing me, when I cried, with all the strength that 
remained to me: 

“Christian! Christian! ” 

He heard me in spite of the noise of the guns; 
stopped, and turned round. 

“ Christian! ” I cried, “ take pity on me! ” 








HALT! stop!” 


“ 





THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 279 


He saw me lying at the foot of a tree, and came 
to me with a pale face and staring eyes: 

“What! Is it you, my poor Joseph?” cried he, 
springing from his horse. 

He lifted me in his arms as if I were an infant, 
and shouted to the men who were driving the last 
wagon: | 

“ Halt! ” 

Then embracing me, he placed me in it, my head 
upon a knapsack. I saw too that he wrapped a 
great cavalry cloak around my feet, as he cried: 

“Forward! Forward! It is growing warm yon- 
der! ” 
I remember no more, but I have the faint im- 
pression of hearing the sound of heavy guns and 
rattle of musketry, mingled with shouts and com- 
mands. Branches of tall pines seemed to pass be- 
tween me and the sky through the night; but all 
this might have been a dream. But that day, be- 
hind Solmunster, in the woods of Hanau, we had 
a battle with the Bavarians, and routed them. 


XXII 


On the fifteenth of January, 1814, two months 
and a half after the battle of Hanau, I awoke in 
a good bed, and at the end of a little, well-warmed 
room ; and gazing at the rafters over my head, 
then at the little windows, where the frost had 
spread its silver sheen, I exclaimed: “ It is winter! ” 
At the same time I heard the crash of artillery and 
the crackling of a fire, and turning over on my bed 
in a few moments, I saw seated at its side a pale 
young woman, with her arms folded, and I recog- 
nized—Catharine! I recognized, too, the room 
where I had spent so many happy Sundays before 
going to the wars. But the thunder of the cannon 
made me think I was dreaming. I gazed for a long 
while at Catharine, who seemed more beautiful 
than ever, and the question rose, “ Where is Aunt 
Grédel? am I at home once more? God grant that 
this be not a dream! ” 

At last I took courage and called softly: 

“ Oatharine! ” And she, turning her head cried: 


“ Joseph! Do you know me?” 
280 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 281 


“ Yes,” I replied, holding out my hand. 

She approached, trembling and sobbing, when 
again and again the cannon thundered. 

“‘ What are those shots I hear?” I cried. 

“ The guns of Phalsbourg,” she answered. “ The 
city is besieged.” 

“‘ Phaisbourg besieged! The enemy in France! ” 

I could speak no more. Thus had so much suffer- 
ing, so many tears, so many thousands of lives gone 
for nothing, ay, worse than nothing, for the foe was 
at our homes. For an hour I could think of nothing 
else; and now, old and gray-haired as I am, the 
thought fills me with bitterness. Yes, we old men 
have seen the German, the Russian, the Swede, the 
Spaniard, the Englishman, masters of France, garri- 
soning our cities, taking whatever suited them from 
our fortresses, insulting our soldiers, changing our 
flag, and dividing among themselves, not only our 
conquests since 1804, but even those of the Re- 
public. These were the fruits of ten years of glory! 

But let us not speak of these things, the future 
will pass upon them. They will tell us that after 
Lutzen and Bautzen, the enemy offered to leave us 
Belgium, part of Holland, all the left bank of the 
Rhine as far as Bale, with Savoy and the kingdom 
of Italy; and that the Emperor refused to accept 
these conditions, brilliant as they were, because he 


282 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


placed the satisfaction of his own pride before the 
happiness of France! 

But to return to my story. For two weeks after 
the battle of Hanau, thousands of wagons, filled 
with wounded, crowded the road from Strasbourg 
to Nancy, and passed through Phalsbourg. 

They stretched in one long line through all Al- 
sace to Lorraine. 

Not one in the sad cortége escaped the eyes of 
Aunt Grédel and Catharine. What their thoughts 
were, I need not say. More than twelve hundred 
wagons had passed ;—I was in none of them. Thou- 
sands of fathers and mothers sought among them 
for their children. How many returned without 
them! 

The third day Catharine found me among a heap 
of other wretches, in basket wagons from Mayence, 
with sunken cheeks and glaring eyes—dying of hun- 
ger. She knew me at once, but Aunt Grédel gazed 
long before she cried: 

“Yes! itis he! It is Joseph! ” 

She took me home, and watched over me night 
and day. I wanted only water, for which I con- 
stantly shrieked. No one in the village believed 
that I would ever recover, but the happiness of 
breathing my native air and of once more seeing 
those I loved, saved me. 


THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 283 


It was about six months after, on the 15th of 
July, 1814, that Catharine and I were married; 
Monsieur Goulden, who loved us as his own chil- 
dren, gave me half his business, and we lived to- 
gether as happy as birds. 

Then the wars were ended; the allies gradually 
returned to their homes; the Emperor went to Elba, 
and King Louis XVIII. gave us a reasonable 
amount of liberty. Once more the sweet days of 
youth returned—the days of love, of labor, and 
of peace. The future was once more full of hope 
—of hope that every one, by good conduct and 
economy, would at some time attain a position in 
the world, win the esteem of good men, and raise 
his family without fear of being carried off by the 
conscription seven or eight years after. 

Monsieur Goulden, who was not too well satisfied 
at seeing the old kings and nobility return, thought, 
notwithstanding, that they had suffered enough in 
foreign lands to understand that they were not the 
only people in the world, and to respect our rights; 
he thought, too, that the Emperor Napoleon would 
have the good sense to remain quiet—but he was 
mistaken. The Bourbons returned with their old 
notions, and the Emperor only awaited the moment 
of vengeance. 

All this was to bring more miseries upon us, 








284 THE STORY OF A CONSCRIPT 


which I would willingly relate, if this story did not 
seem already long enough. But here let us rest. 
If people of sense tell me that I have done well in 
relating my campaign of 1813—that my story may 
show youth the vanity of military glory, and prove © 
that no man can gain happiness save by peace, lib- 
erty, and labor—then I will take up my pen once 
more, and give you the story of Waterloo ! 








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